Emergency Contacts
by distantmuse
Summary: Natalie and Jason Figueroa divorce, leaving them free to love Joe Caputo and Gavin (respectively). But when their lives remain intertwined due to major events in Natalie's life, will they find themselves becoming unlikely friends and supporters? Caputo/Fig and Jason/Gavin (The story is better than my lackluster summary, haha.)
1. Chapter 1

Joe jogged to the nurse's station at the local emergency room, stopping rest his hands on his knees and breathe heavily when he finally reached it. He'd been running – and driving – like a bat out of hell to get to the hospital.

When Joe looked up, he realized that someone he recognized, Jason Figueroa, had run in from the other direction and joined him.

 _What the hell was_ he _doing there?_

"I'm looking for Natalie Figueroa." Joe announced to the first nurse he could get the attention of at the nurse's station before Jason could speak.

"I'm Jason _Figueroa._ " Jason drew out his last name dramatically. Joe wasn't sure whether it was to point out that it was the same as Natalie's or to try to draw the nurse's attention to the fact that he was one of her state senators.

Either way, she didn't look impressed.

"I'm her husband." Jason was saying, at the same time that Joe said, "I'm her boyfriend."

The nurse nodded slowly, her brow arched. "Oh… Oookay then. Well, apparently, you are both listed as her emergency contacts. They called both of you."

"Is Natalie okay?" Joe asked, concerned.

"She passed out at work. We're still running some tests, but we believe that she has pneumonia and that she fainted from dehydration. We're giving her some fluids, and that should perk her up. Has she been sick lately?"

"I don't know." Jason said, while Joe said, "Yes." They exchanged a less-than-friendly look that didn't go unnoticed by the nurse.

"What kind of symptoms?"

"Cough for a while, a fever and chills sometimes the past couple of days… I told her not to go to work."

Jason snorted. "Like she was going to listen to that."

"That would be consistent with the pneumonia diagnosis. Any long-term health issues we should know about?"

Joe sighed. "She sort of… Goes back and forth between bulimia and anorexia." Jason nodded his agreement.

The nurse jotted it down in her notes. "And how long has she struggled with those?"

Joe shrugged and reluctantly looked at Jason, who supplied the answer. "Since she was 16."

"Any other health history I should know?"

Jason thought for a moment. "She takes antidepressants. She also has no tonsils or adenoids, she is sometimes anemic, and she's allergic to penicillin."

Jason took a clipboard of paperwork from the nurse and scribbled down some more information about Natalie for her. He knew it was irrational, given the number of years that Jason and Natalie had been married, but Joe hated that Jason knew more about her than he did.

"I'm guessing you would be the one with the insurance card?" The nurse asked Jason, who nodded and fumbled around in his wallet looking for it.

"She's my wife. Can I see her?"

"She's your 'wife' because at a courthouse somewhere, there's a piece of paper filed away that says that." Joe argued. "You haven't been her real husband in _months_ , maybe _years_. She's just your armpiece, and I'm honestly surprised you could even leave your _Gavin_ long enough to show up."

The nurse's eyebrows shot up. Jason clenched his hand into a fist while Joe almost laughed.

"Are you going to punch me?" Joe taunted him.

"I'd like to, but I'm not sure if your nose can take another hit."

"Do you really want battery on your record, _Senator_?"

"It might be worth it." Jason growled.

The nurse raised her voice. "Have you both forgotten that you are here because Ms. Figueroa is ill enough to be in the _emergency room_?"

Both men turned toward the nurse, looking somewhat apologetic. Joe spoke first. "Can _I_ see her?"

The nurse rubbed her head tiredly. "They're in with her right now. After they finish a couple of other tests, how about I just tell her you're _both_ here, and _she_ can decide what to do with you? Because I'm done. Either go kill each other outside where I don't have to do the paperwork or go sit in the waiting room until I come and get you."

* * *

They chose the waiting room, where they sat across from each other in ten long minutes of silence before Jason finally spoke up.

"You don't just forget fifteen years of marriage. You get that I still care about her, right?"

"So much that you were fucking your assistant behind her back?"

"She was fucking _you_ behind mine." Jason pointed out.

" _After_ you neglected her and broke her heart while asking her to steal money for your campaign."

"You don't know the whole damn story."

"Does she?" Joe challenged.

Jason paused. "No."

"Figures."

Jason exhaled slowly. "How do you tell your wife that you've realized that you're bisexual, and that you've fallen more in love with another man than you are with her?"

Joe had no response to that, so he shrugged and waited to see if Jason would go on.

"I knew she'd figured it out." Jason continued. "I didn't want to have to look at her face and tell her. I didn't want to hurt her worse than I already had."

"So, you're a chicken shit." Joe scoffed. "She didn't just 'figure it out;' she caught you kissing him at some cocktail party."

"Fuck." Jason sighed. "I didn't know that."

"Would it have mattered?"

"Trust me… It would have been so much easier to have stayed in love with my highly intelligent, sophisticated, charming wife than it has been to fall in love with my adorably nerdy 24-year-old male assistant who met me because he was my intern."

"Why are you telling me any of this?" Joe threw up his hands. "You don't owe me an explanation. You owe that to _Natalie._ You made her put up all of these walls."

Jason held up one hand. "I won't deny that I've hurt her and caused some of her walls, but I didn't build all of them. It's not my fault that her mother died of cancer when she was twelve, or that her father lost his fucking mind after that. Or that she was raped in high school. She also had three miscarriages _in a row_ before we gave up for years. Working in that damn prison hardened her, too. She's broken, but I'm _not_ the only one who broke her."

Joe was quiet for a moment, not having known _any_ of that about her history, other than the obvious work in the prison. "I'm feel like I'm constantly just trying to get to the real her."

Jason sighed. "The 'real her' is always going to be a little broken."

"I just wish she'd let me see the pieces."

"It takes a long time with her." Jason met Joe's eyes. "But it's worth it. She's so much more than what she lets people believe. She's not all ice-cold bitch."

"I know. I've seen it in small glimpses."

Jason absently twisted the golden band on his left ring finger. "When I was in law school, I went into a coffee shop before class one morning. Natalie was in front of me in line, and she wasn't nearly as graceful in high heels then. She turned around and stumbled, so I caught her. She spilled her entire latte down the front of my shirt. My chest was burning, and my skin was probably blistering. It was so fucking painful. I can still remember how much it hurt. But I fell for her right then, and all I could think about was how I had to get the tall, beautiful, clumsy girl's number."

Jason paused, pulling the ring up and down his finger.

"When I married her two years later, it was the happiest day of my life. And there were a lot of happy years after that. They weren't always easy, but they were pretty happy." Jason sat back in his seat and locked eyes with Joe. "So, you see… I was in love with her once, too."

Joe cleared his throat. "I never said I was in love with her."

"But you are." Jason raked a hand through his greying hair. "I think she's in love with you, too."

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't really see her much. She shacks up with you, and I stay at Gavin's place, and a brand new $600,000 house sits empty. But when I do see her, I noticed that she smiles a little more. Her eyes are a little happier. And…" Jason hesitated.

"And what?"

Jason turned his head to face Joe. "Nat asked me for a divorce a few weeks ago."

"She did?" Joe's eyebrows raised.

"Our attorneys are hashing out the details." Jason looked down at his phone as it buzzed and lit up in his hand. "I'll be right back."

Jason answered his phone only a few feet away, and Joe could hear enough of his conversation to figure out quickly that he was speaking to Gavin.

" _Natalie has pneumonia, but she'll be okay… No, I haven't seen her yet. Hopefully in a few… Yeah, I think I'll be home for dinner... There are chicken breasts marinating in the fridge if you want to use those… Did that package from Amazon come today? Okay… I miss you… I love you too."_

It struck Joe that it sounded like such a normal couple conversation, not like two men who had conspired to ruin Natalie's life. They'd each just fallen for a completely unexpected person.

And that was something Joe could fully relate to.

When Jason returned, the nurse they had been speaking to approached them. "They're finished with the tests."

"Can…" Jason glanced at Joe. "One of us see her?"

The nurse rolled her eyes skyward. "Lord help me; I don't know why. But she wants to see both of you. Together."

* * *

When they got inside Natalie's room, Jason approached her first while Joe hung back by the door. Natalie was slightly pale, with a nasal cannula providing her with oxygen and an IV running up to a clear bag of fluids they were using to re-hydrate her.

"Hey, Nat." Jason patted her lightly on the leg, then settled in a chair next to her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better, but I've been worse." Natalie's voice was raspy from the congestion in her lungs. "Hitting the floor at work is fucking embarrassing. My pride is probably worse off than anything else.

"I'm glad you're okay." Jason cleared his throat. "The nurse said you wanted to see both of us."

"First, I wanted to see if _you_ were actually here, because it was so unlikely that I figured I was hallucinating when the nurse said that." Natalie directed her statement to Jason.

Joe felt a stab of something that felt like jealousy in his chest. He knew it was ridiculous; Jason had made his feelings clear, and Natalie had asked for a divorce, but there had been a bond between them that Joe felt like he couldn't match. He couldn't even get Natalie to lower many of the guards that she had up.

"I also wanted to make sure no one was bleeding. She said you were bickering and bordering on a fist fight." Natalie continued warily.

Jason looked back at Joe. "Well… I don't think it would have gone that far."

Natalie followed his gaze the door, where Joe was still awkwardly standing. "Are you coming in, or are you holding up that door?"

Joe walked to the opposite side of the bed as Jason, sitting in a chair there. He was surprised to see Natalie holding her hand out toward him, wiggling her fingers at him slightly. Jason watched as Joe laid his hand over Natalie's, curling it around her fingers.

"I should be going." With his eyes still on their hands, Jason slowly stood. "You've got this?"

There was weight to his quiet words. Natalie was oblivious to it, but Joe wasn't. Jason wasn't only talking about that day there in the hospital. He was asking if Joe was going to take care of the woman that Jason had promised (and failed) to love and to cherish, until death to them part. Jason was asking if Joe, despite her flaws and the past that had shaped her into a hard and no-nonsense woman, would continue to try to reach her.

If he wouldn't hurt her the way that Jason had.

"Yeah." Joe squeezed Natalie's hand. "I do."

* * *

 _This is meant to be a one-shot, but if people like it and have ideas about directions I could take with it, I'm open to continuing._

 _Also, someone else out there needs to be writing Fig/Caputo fic! Haha. I'm dying out here alone._


	2. Chapter 2

_I decided to go ahead and continue this, and to focus about half Natalie/Joe and half Jason/Gavin. I have never written a M/M relationship before, so be gentle._

* * *

"How's she doing?"

"Better. They're going to keep her overnight and see how she is tomorrow."

Jason moved behind Gavin, who was chopping red bell peppers on a wooden cutting board. He wrapped his arms around Gavin's torso from behind and kissed the side of his neck gently. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." Gavin leaned his head back against Jason for a moment before continuing to cut the vegetables. "Your lawyer called."

"Oh?"

"He has the paperwork drawn up and is almost ready to meet with Natalie's attorney. He needs a few more documents from you." Gavin scooted a group of diced peppers over on his cutting board and placed an onion on it.

Jason was quiet for a moment. "That was... Fast."

Gavin paused his chopping; he couldn't quite pinpoint the tone in Jason's voice. It almost sounded like disappointment or even regret. "Were you wanting to drag out what should have happened a long time ago?"

Jason dropped his hands from Gavin's body. "No, but..."

"Because it sounds like you're upset that the divorce is moving along."

"What? No. I just never expected her to be the one to file for it." Jason said. He moved to lean his back against the counter next to Gavin where he could face him. "I always thought it'd be me, and it feels... Weird."

"I see." Gavin said, not looking up.

"We are talking about dissolving the last fifteen years of my life. Natalie and I have been through a lot together. Don't you think that it's difficult to call it the end?"

Gavin rolled his eyes. "It's been the end. You've been living separately for months."

"That's not the point." Jason rubbed a hand over his face.

Gavin wouldn't understand, and how could he? He was only twenty-four years old. He'd come out at thirteen, and he'd had only one serious relationship before Jason. Gavin had been in _elementary school_ when Jason and Natalie were married. Even if they were no longer a real couple, the history between them couldn't be erased.

"I respect the hell out of her. She could have filed for divorce as adultery and ruined me, but she filed it as no-fault." Jason pointed out.

"Ruined you." Gavin echoed, hurt, shaking his head. "So that's what you think of us."

"Gavin, that's not what I meant." Jason reached for Gavin's hand, but he refused to give it to him.

"Are you still in love with her?"

"No." Jason said firmly. "I'm in love with you."

"But you still love her."

"There's a big difference between the two. You knew going into this that I had a wife, a marriage, a past."

"Natalie's like a doll that you don't want to let go of." Gavin argued. "You're still putting her in cocktail dresses and fancy updos and Louboutins, parading her around events while you keep me in the shadows."

"You know it's the act we have to put on." Jason sighed. "If my constituents find out that I have a boyfriend, they'll think I lied about everything."

Gavin whacked the onion a little harder than was necessary with his knife. "Didn't you?"

* * *

Something cool and moist being plopped on her head roused Natalie from her nap in Joe's bed the following afternoon.

Natalie opened her eyes and rolled up to look at the wet washcloth on her forehead. "Seriously?"

"I didn't mean to wake you." Joe said apologetically.

"Then why would you throw a wet washcloth on my head?" Natalie tossed the washcloth to the nightstand.

"Your forehead felt warm, and you were thrashing around in your sleep. I was worried. I thought you had a fever again."

Natalie arched a brow. "Have you just been watching me sleep?"

"You're making it sound creepier than it is."

Natalie began to respond, but Joe took advantage of Natalie's open mouth to shove the metal tip of a thermometer under her tongue. Natalie sighed in exasperation, but closed her mouth around it and allowed it to take her temperature.

The thermometer beeped and Joe pulled it out of her mouth. "100.5. I'm going to get you some Tylenol."

"Is any of this really necessary?" Natalie sighed.

"Would you rather go back to the ER?"

"Fine." Natalie relented.

He returned with a tray that held a bottle of Tylenol, a bottle of water, and a bowl of soup. Joe set the tray on the nightstand and sat down beside her on the bed.

Natalie shook her head as she sat up in the bed. "You don't need to do all of this."

"I know you're not used to being taken care of, but you are sick. I _want_ to do this, so would you just let me?" Joe fumbled with the bottle of Tylenol.

"Three." Natalie supplied.

"It says two on the bottle." Joe said, scrutinizing the label.

Natalie rolled her eyes and accepted the Tylenol from Joe, downing it with a sip of water from the bottle. When she'd finished, he moved the tray with the bowl of soup on it to her lap, then crawled next to her on the bed, sitting beside her on top of the covers.

"It smells good."

"It's Nonna Caputo's recipe."

"An Italian lady had a chicken soup recipe?"

"Hey, Italian people get sick, too."

Natalie laughed a little as she tasted it. "It reminds me of boarding school."

"I didn't know you went to boarding school."

"Yeah, sophomore through senior years." Natalie stared down at her bowl, swirling her spoon around in it to avoid Joe's eyes. "After my mother died, my father kind of… Lost it. He ended up institutionalized, and my grandparents were too old to deal with a teenager, so they shipped me off to Connecticut."

"I'm sorry that happened to you."

"It wasn't too bad. I had lots of friends. There was good chicken soup." Natalie looked at him and smiled a little. "It was never lonely, which was probably good because I'm not sure what… Decisions I would have made if I hadn't constantly been surrounded by people. I was… Safe. My father had these psychotic episodes and…"

Natalie suddenly stopped talking.

Joe placed a gentle hand on her leg. "You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to."

"He's been in and out of mental hospitals since. Last I heard, he was in."

"Do you ever see him?" Joe hesitated before asking.

"Rarely." Natalie ate a couple of bites of the soup. "And then only out of guilt and obligation."

"I know it's not easy for you to talk about things." Joe said quietly, brushing a piece of hair away from her face. "So, it means a lot that you feel comfortable enough with me to tell me that."

Natalie cleared her throat. "The soup is really good, though."

"Some other time, I'll make you her Italian Wedding Soup."

"Speaking of wedding…" Natalie looked down. 'I assume Jason told you that I filed for divorce?"

Joe nodded slowly. "He did. I was a little surprised."

"It was past time." Natalie paused. "Is it weird that one reason I stayed married to him this long is that I didn't want to 'divorce' his family? They're this crazy Mexican-American bunch. Huge family, tons of nieces and nephews. I liked that. I never had that until I married him."

"I think that sounds pretty normal."

"It's time for both of us to move on."

Joe looked at her almost shyly. "Do you want to move on with me?"

Natalie laced her fingers through Joe's and smiled at him. "I thought I already had."

* * *

The next morning, Gavin reluctantly followed Jason into the huge house in picturesque suburbia that was purchased after Jason won the senate race. They rarely went there because Gavin always felt awkward in the house that Jason shared with Natalie, even though "shared" was a relative term; they could probably count the number of nights they'd spent there together on their fingers.

"I need to get some clothes. If you want to look for those documents for the lawyer, they're probably in my second or third desk drawer." Jason called over his shoulder as he headed upstairs.

Gavin walked through the glass door that led to Jason's office and crossed the room to the giant cherry desk in the middle of the room. He rifled through the second drawer, not seeing anything that Jason needed, and he moved to the third drawer. Gavin moved a few papers out of the way until he uncovered something that made his hand freeze and hover over it in shock.


	3. Chapter 3

Gavin slowly picked up the small ultrasound photo from Jason's desk drawer. He inhaled sharply as he looked at it, wondering what Jason had been hiding from him.

"Hey." Jason popped his head into his office, his arm laden with the dress shirts folded over it. "Did you find the documents?"

Gavin turned to face him, the ultrasound still in his hands. "Is Natalie…"

Jason's brow turned confused. When he realized what Gavin was holding, his expression became pained, and he pressed his lips together in a tight line. He stood motionless in the doorway while Gavin patiently waited for an answer.

"No." Jason took a deep breath. "Look at the date."

Gavin squinted at the small print on the grainy image to find it was dated about five years prior. He frowned slightly. "I didn't realize there was a… Baby."

"There were three, actually. That was the last one and the only one she made it to an ultrasound with, but it was gone too a week after this. We thought we were safe with that one, but…" Jason sat down on the edge of his desk.

Gavin held the ultrasound picture out to Jason and he took it. He looked at it solemnly. No matter how many times he saw it, he felt the pain wash back over him again whenever he looked at it.

"She could get pregnant, but she couldn't stay pregnant."

 _Jason laid on his side next to Natalie on their bed. He sighed as he brushed his fingers against her tear-stained cheek. Rather than looking at him, she seemed to stare through him._

" _Are you in any pain?" Jason asked, referring to the D &C procedure that Natalie had undergone earlier that week._

" _Not physically."_

" _You haven't gotten out of bed in days." Jason murmured, running his fingertips up and down her arm. "You haven't eaten anything. You're going to make yourself sick."_

" _I don't care. What does it matter anyway?"_

" _Nat…"_

" _I wish I understood why this keeps happening." Natalie whispered, allowing tears to flow freely down her face without bothering to wipe them away._

" _Me too."_

" _Do you know what it's like for your body to fail you over and over again? It's supposed to be made for this. And I can't…" Natalie couldn't continue speaking for her crying._

" _We have to stop trying for a while." Jason said softly, tangling his hand in a piece of Natalie's messy hair. "I can't take seeing you this way."_

" _I want a baby so much." Natalie choked back another sob._

" _I know you do." Jason sighed, toying with her chunk of curls that he held in his hand. "I want it, too._

 _Natalie turned away from him. She her arms wrapped around her stomach, which would never be anything but flat, as she sobbed._

Gavin placed a hand over Jason's. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't think she would ever stop crying that time." Jason shook his head as though to clear it, then tucked the photo back into his desk drawer. He'd never let himself cry about it, trying to be strong for Natalie instead of making her feel worse and even more guilty for losing her pregnancies.

"Do you still want to be a father?"

Jason hesitated. "I don't know. It just doesn't seem like it's in the cards for me."

Gavin silently pulled Jason to him by his waist and embraced him tightly. Jason rested his head on Gavin's shoulder while Gavin rubbed his back with long, gentle strokes. They stood that way for a long time before Jason finally lost the battle against the tears in his eyes and allowed himself to release five years of pain into Gavin's shoulder.

* * *

Natalie was feeling much better a couple of days after her ER visit, well enough to lie down on Joe's couch with her long legs resting comfortably in his lap while they binged on old shows on Netflix.

"I have to say that I never thought I'd be on your couch watching Frasier with you on a Sunday afternoon."

"That makes two of us." Joe agreed. "I used to think you were actually Satan's incarnate."

"I still might be." Natalie smirked. "But you fell for me anyway."

"I didn't fall for you. You fuckin' tripped me." Joe bent her knee and lowered his lips to kiss it.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "You are such a nerd."

She started to say something else, but she was interrupted by the buzzing of her cell phone on the coffee table. The number wasn't one she recognized, and she furrowed her brow as she answered it.

"Hello? Yes, this is she. Oh. Uh. Hold on." Natalie quickly stood up from the couch and walked into Joe's kitchen with her phone.

Joe stretched on the couch and yawned. It was probably a work call; there'd been several since she'd been forced to take a couple of days off with the pneumonia. He did find it a little odd that she'd left the room.

Natalie was gone for several minutes. Joe watched with concern as she returned to the living room silently. She grasped the door frame as though to steady herself. Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath. The expression on her face was unreadable; it was then that he noticed how pale her face was. Was she getting sicker again?

Joe stood from the couch and quickly approached her. He caught her free hand in his while her other remained on the door frame.

"Nat? What is it?"

Natalie opened her eyes and locked them with Joe's.

"My father committed suicide this morning."


	4. Chapter 4

Jason's eyes blurred as he stared at his laptop screen. Writer's block kept him from sleep as Gavin snored beside him in bed. Gavin could sleep through anything, but Jason had been an insomniac for as long as he could remember.

Jason's phone began to buzz on the bed beside him. Jason glanced at the clock on his nightstand as he picked it up. Who in the hell would be calling him after midnight?

His soon-to-be ex-wife's name lit up the screen.

"Natalie?" Jason answered the phone, a hint of concern in his voice.

"No… It's Joe. Sorry to call so late. She's asleep, so I stole her phone to get your number."

Jason chuckled. "Oh, she's going to _love_ that."

"I need your help as my uh… Co-emergency contact."

"What's wrong?" Jason sat up a little straighter in bed.

"Natalie's father committed suicide today."

Jason exhaled slowly. "Ah, fuck. I guess she's not taking it well if you're calling me."

"I don't know how she's taking it because she won't talk about it. All she wanted to do was…" Joe trailed off, acutely aware that he was talking to the man she was still technically married to.

He'd tried to resist her advances and get her to talk about what she was feeling instead, but she was relentless. When she finally sank to her knees in front of him on the floor, he gave in; he was only human. Rough sex wasn't new to them, but that night, Natalie had begged him to fuck her harder and faster to the point where Joe was afraid he was actually going to hurt her lithe body.

"Yes, I'm very much aware of Natalie's… Coping mechanisms." Jason cleared his throat. "You can spare me those details, thanks."

"I expected her to cry or scream or fall apart… Something. But her face was just… Frozen."

"And you're sure it's not just the Botox?" Jason attempted a joke to lighten the mood.

Joe ignored it. "She finally fell asleep, and I called you."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. I don't know the shit she went through with her father. You do."

Jason shut his laptop and tossed his glasses to the nightstand beside him and rubbing his eyes. "Have you tried _asking_ her?"

"You really think _now_ is the time for that?"

"No, I guess not." Jason sighed.

"Can you talk to her with me?"

Jason was silent for several moments. He glanced at Gavin, who continued to doze beside him in bed. "What's your address? I'll come by in the morning."

* * *

True to his word, Jason arrived promptly at nine the next morning, holding a cup of coffee in one hand. Joe, exhausted from worrying about Natalie all night, answered the door still wearing an undershirt and a pair of pajamas pants.

"Any change?" Jason asked.

"All I've gotten out of her is that there weren't any arrangements, so she has to go make them." Joe answered.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" Natalie appeared in the doorway behind Joe.

"Good morning to you, too, sweetheart." Jason replied cheerfully as he stepped into Joe's house.

Natalie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Joe. "Is this a fucking intervention?"

"Pretty much." Jason said, extending the soy vanilla latte he held in one hand to her. The disdain in her eyes didn't change, but she accepted the cardboard cup from him.

"Of course. What kind of senator would you be if you didn't rush to your wife's aid?" Natalie rolled her eyes and took a drink of the coffee. "Oh, and where's your man whore?"

Jason inhaled slowly. "Gavin is at my office taking care of some things."

"I'll bet he is."

"We're worried about you, Natalie." Joe said softly.

"I'd say, if the two of you are teaming up like this." Natalie curled up on the couch with her coffee. "I don't know what you want from me. There's nothing to say. He's dead. It's over… It's… All over."

"So, you're telling me you don't have the nightmares anymore?" Jason pressed.

Joe glanced back and forth between Jason and Natalie. Since they'd been together, there were nights he'd heard Natalie cry out in her sleep. Sometimes he'd wake to her thrashing around in the sheets until he gathered her in his arms.

The night before had been one of those nights.

"She does." Joe said quietly.

"What the fuck, Joe?" Natalie slammed her fist on the couch arm angrily. "Whose side are you on?"

"The one that helps you get through this, Nat. You're obviously not okay."

"I don't need this weird ass alliance the two of you have formed."

"Too bad. The three of us are taking a road trip to Ohio to bury your father." Jason announced.

Natalie scoffed. "Oh, if you think you are going with me, you are out of your fucking…"

"Wait, Ohio?" Joe cut in.

"Yes, Ohio… Land of buckeyes, newscaster accents, and really fucking terrible drivers. Pack your bags."


	5. Chapter 5

A few hours later, Natalie was glaring out the passenger window of Jason's BMW somewhere along I-90. While she hadn't said a word unless forced to by one of the men, Joe was in the backseat, chatting with Jason like they were old friends.

It was going to be a long seven hours.

"I think we have a shot, but we really need to work on our defense." Joe was saying.

"What do you think of our new quarterback?" Jason asked.

"I think he looks pretty solid, but we'll have to see how it goes."

"Okay." Natalie finally interrupted. "Do the two of you just not see that this is fucking weird?"

"What?"

" _You're_ my husband." Natalie nodded her head toward Jason, then jerked her thumb back in Joe's direction. " _You're_ my boyfriend. Do you not think it's weird that you're getting along so well?"

Jason shrugged. "Our marriage is over. We know that. Joe's a cool guy."

"Thank you."

"I know you're trained in the art of schmooze, Jason, but this is ridiculous."

"I'm not schmoozing."

"Also, I hate when men say 'we' when they're talking about sports teams. Your asses are on the couch. You aren't fucking playing." Natalie crossed her arms.

"Someone's grumpy." Joe muttered.

"Yes, because the two of you staged an intervention and made it into a road trip like we're in some kind of college movie. I was going to go alone and take care of it."

"You didn't need to do this alone." Joe said gently.

"Whatever, but if the two of you start calling each other 'bro,' I'm getting out and walking." Natalie muttered.

"Should we stop for lunch soon?" Jason asked.

"I'm game." Joe answered.

"Nat?"

"You two go ahead. I'm not going to eat anything."

"Of course not." Jason inhaled sharply, obviously triggered by the statement. "Your immune system is already weakened since you just had pneumonia. Are you trying to get a NG tube shoved down your throat?"

Joe couldn't see Natalie's face, but he could see her entire body stiffen, even from his position behind her. The sudden added tension between Jason and Natalie made Joe realize that the situation Jason had referred to had not merely been hypothetical; it had actually happened before to Natalie.

"Is that even legal?" Joe couldn't help asking.

"It is when the person is unconscious, and her life is in jeopardy." Jason cast a side glance at Natalie, who had set her jaw and refused to look at him.

"Okay." Joe said quietly. "I'm not sure this is helpful, Jason."

"With all due respect, Joe, you haven't watched her try to destroy herself from the inside out like I have for fifteen years." Jason's hands tensed on the steering wheel. "If you had, you'd understand a little more about where I'm coming from."

"You say that as though you think I _enjoy_ having eating disorders."

"I don't think you _enjoy_ them, but I—"

"A salad. Will you eat just eat a fucking salad, Natalie, so we don't have to worry more about you?" Joe interrupted their argument, exasperated.

"Fine." Natalie relented. "Just not from Panera. Linda orders that for every damn staff meeting. I'm starting to think she owns part of it."

* * *

Jason found a kitschy greasy spoon diner in a small town several miles later. Natalie had refrained from wrinkling her nose in distaste at the place, figuring it would be hard for them to screw up salad.

"I'm going to go call Gavin and check in." Jason announced once they'd ordered.

"On your office or his dick?" Natalie mumbled as Jason walked away. Joe gave her a look. "Yeah, I'm still working on the bitterness."

"Nat…" Joe decided to take advantage of their time alone. "I've been trying really hard not to push you about your father, but… I really wish you'd let me in on this."

Natalie swirled her straw around in her iced tea, focusing on the amber liquid instead of meeting Joe's eyes. "My father had bipolar disorder, and it was pretty well-controlled with meds while my mother was alive. When she died, he stopped taking them… He went berserk. He'd have these… Episodes. He'd hit me and shove me. I didn't say anything to anyone for months, but CPS and law enforcement got involved after he slammed me into a wall and landed me in the hospital with a concussion and a broken nose."

"Jesus, Natalie…" Joe reached for her hand.

"I begged them to get him psychiatric help instead of jail time. I didn't know how long we'd be separated if he went to jail. I'd already lost my mother." Natalie took a deep, shaky breath. She finally looked up to meet Joe's eyes. "I didn't want to lose my father, too."

"Right…"

"I thought if he got help, that he'd get better, and we'd be able to be a family again." Natalie laughed bitterly. "That's before I really understood how mental health issues work. Obviously, he _never_ really got better."

Jason slid back into the booth across the table from Natalie and Joe, laying his cell phone down on the table.

"And how is _young_ Gavin?" Natalie oozed with faux sweetness.

Jason flinched at her condescension. "He's fine."

"It seems like he's a better wife than I ever was." Natalie quipped. "He cooks your meals, runs your office, writes your press releases, makes sure you're fresh and put together… He's right out of the 50s. I'm just not sure how he looks in a cocktail dress."

Jason gritted his teeth. "Natalie…"

"I'm sorry." Natalie sighed. "I'm trying, but even though we're getting divorced, his youthful exuberance really pisses me off."

"I get it. Old habits die hard." Jason shrugged. "It's still imprinted in my reflexes to want to punch this guy in the face every time he touches you."

"Bring it. I was a wrestler in high school. I can take you." Joe looped his arm around Natalie's waist playfully, eliciting laughs from both Natalie and Jason and breaking some of the tension between them.

"So, what's the plan?" Jason asked.

"I booked hotel rooms for tonight in the car." Natalie said. "We meet with the mortician in the morning. There won't be a service, but… He had no burial arrangements. That's what we'll be doing."

"You okay?" Joe asked

"No." Natalie closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't even want to be in the same building that his body is. How is it that I'm still terrified of a man who's dead?"


	6. Chapter 6

Through the bits and pieces of information that Natalie had shared on the trip, he'd put together that she had been raised upper middle class in a suburb north of Columbus called Worthington. Her father had worked in insurance before his mental collapse, and her mother had worked in a museum until she died of pancreatic cancer.

Their hotel was located about fifteen minutes from where Natalie grew up. They checked in after dinner, and Natalie went to bed shortly after, leaving Joe bored and awake. He wandered downstairs to the hotel lounge and found Jason already at the bar.

"Nat coming down, too?"

"No, she's in bed." Joe settled onto the bar stool next to him and ordered a whiskey from the bartender.

Jason glanced at his watch. "At 8:30?"

"I guess it's the stress."

"Tomorrow is going to be hell." Jason downed the rest of his glass of scotch and gestured to the bartender to give him another.

They sat quietly with their drinks for a few minutes, staring at the televisions mounted above the bar before Joe spoke again. "So… What's it like to be a senator?"

Jason's honesty was fueled by the alcohol he'd been consuming. "Exhausting. Keeping up appearances, especially when you aren't exactly what people think you are, gets old. Natalie's been a ridiculously good sport about it. I don't think she would have ever filed for divorce if you two hadn't gotten together. She can be loyal to a fault. That's why this is so hard for her. Even though her dad was abusive and crazy, she still loved him."

"What does Gavin think about her still being your escort?" Joe asked, taking a drink of whiskey.

"Well, what do _you_ think about it?" Jason asked pointedly.

"It doesn't thrill me." Joe admitted.

"Gavin's not exactly thrilled that I went running to Ohio with her either."

"Why _did_ you do that?"

"I felt like I owed it to her after everything she'd done for me." Jason shrugged. "Have you ever been married?"

"No."

"When you share your life with someone for so long, it's hard to just forget about that person when you know she's hurting. It doesn't mean that I want to stay married to her or be with her. Gavin has trouble understanding that. He's insecure. It's like he forgets that I gave up my relationship with her to be with him."

"I guess from our point of view, it just seems weird."

"Trust me. You and Gavin don't have anything to worry about."

* * *

The next morning, Joe felt a little sluggish from the previous night's drinking as they got dressed to go to the mortuary. He and Jason had stayed in the bar talking until eleven the previous night, continuing to build their unlikely friendship.

Natalie had been quiet as she got dressed until she dropped her hairbrush to the table with a clatter. With her fingers pressed to her lips, she rushed into the bathroom past Joe, who was buttoning his shirt. She barely made it before she was sick.

To give her privacy, Joe waited until a couple of minutes he heard the toilet flush before he walked over to the bathroom doorway. Natalie met Joe's eyes in the reflection of the mirror; her face was pale, and her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.

"Are you okay?" Joe asked, concerned.

Natalie finished brushing her teeth and spat into the sink before responding. "This whole thing is making me fucking sick."

Joe moved out of the doorway as Natalie walked back over to their king-sized bed and sank down into it, holding her head in her hands. "My head is spinning. I constantly feel like I'm going to throw up. Jesus, I don't know I'm going to do this today."

"You're such a strong woman, Nat. You can do this."

"Even strong women have breaking points. This might be mine."

"I've been wanting to say this for a while." Joe sat down on the bed beside her, lightly stroking her back. "I sort of thought that when I did, it would be more romantic than right after you were puking in a hotel toilet… But, I think now is when you really need to hear it."

Natalie turned her face out of her hands, resting her temple on one so she could look at him as he spoke.

"I love you, Natalie." Joe took Natalie's face between his hands and kissed her forehead. "I'm going to help you get through this."

"I love you, too." Natalie said softly. She let her head fall limply against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"You didn't have to say it back." Joe murmured in her ear.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "I know that. I'm forty, not fourteen. I said it because I do love you, you asshat."

Joe chuckled, stroking her hair. "You're always so sweet to me."

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Reluctantly, Joe released Natalie so he could answer it.

"Good morning." Jason greeted them cheerfully, holding a drink carrier with coffee cups in one hand.

"He's a morning person." Natalie complained to Joe. "It's one of his more fucking annoying qualities, next to liking dick, of course."

"Hmm…" Jason pulled back the coffee he had started to hand Natalie. "So, you didn't want this vanilla soy latte with an extra shot?"

"He's also obsessed with coffee, which is one of his better qualities." Natalie explained, leaning forward to snatch the cup back from him.

Jason turned to Joe. "I had no idea how you liked your coffee, but everyone loves mochas, right?"

"That's a little fancier than I usually am, but, sure… I'll try it." Joe hesitantly took a drink. "Holy shit, that's good. You have to try this, Nat."

Natalie rolled her eyes. "I've had a mocha before. I am American, after all."

"Are you ready?" Jason asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose."

* * *

Joe fidgeted uncomfortably in his overstuffed velvet chair at the funeral home. He'd always hated everything about the places – the smell, the outdated décor that attempted to look "homey," the stuffy furniture that looked like it was straight out of the Victorian era.

"Will you be burying your father next to your mother?" William, who seemed young and nervous for someone in his line of work, was asking.

"No." Natalie said brusquely.

"Well, uh…" William stammered, flipping through paperwork on his clipboard. "The second plot was purchased with your mother's when she died."

"Doesn't mean I have to use it."

"Okay. Yeah." William seemed flustered by Natalie's cold responses. "You'll need to select a casket or an urn for burial. There are some catalogs here…"

Natalie eyed them but didn't move to open any. "All right."

"Oh. I almost forgot. This uh… This was found by your father's b-. Um. By your father. The police had to open it, but um…"

William unclipped a white envelope from his clipboard and laid it on the table in front of Natalie. Her face paled as she saw her name written on the front in shaky blue pen strokes. Tears formed in her eyes, and she quickly swiped them away.

Joe cleared his throat as he reached over and took Natalie's hand. "Could you maybe give us a moment?"

"Yes, of course." William seemed grateful for the suggestion and hurriedly left the room.

Natalie shook her head. "I can't do this. You figure it out. Put him in a fucking pine box for all I care."

She dug around in her designer bag until she located her checkbook in its red leather cover. Flinging it in the middle of the table, she abruptly stood, shoving her chair back with a loud squeak across the hardwood floor and shouldering her purse.

" _Don't_ follow me." Natalie walked briskly out of the room, leaving Joe and Jason stunned in her wake and the envelope with her name on it still laying on the table.

"What the hell do we do now?" Joe turned to Jason.

"Can you cremate a Jew?" Jason wondered aloud. "It'd be cheaper and easier."

Joe shrugged, continuing to stare at the doorway Natalie had bolted through. "How the hell would I know? I'm a lapsed Catholic."

"I was raised Catholic, too."

"We could Google it."

"No, that's the kind of stuff she's paying this guy to know." Jason pointed out.

Joe sighed. "Well, she doesn't seem too concerned with her father's religious preferences, but I don't think wants him on her mantle either."

"Good point."

"Do you think she _really_ meant not to follow her?"

"Who knows?" Jason asked, flipping a page in one of the catalogs they'd been given. "That's one thing I don't miss about women. Men say what they mean."

"I'm following her anyway." Joe decided. "I'll let you handle this. You probably have better taste than I do anyway."

"That's a stereotype." Jason protested. "Though in this case, I'm sure it's true."

Joe rolled his eyes and took off out the door, almost colliding with Natalie as she came out of the bathroom.

"I thought I said not to follow me." Natalie sighed.

"Were you throwing up again?"

"Yeah." Natalie admitted, popping a piece of pink gum into her mouth.

"Are you making yourself…" Joe trailed off, realizing he had to tread carefully if he wanted to avoid an explosion.

" _No_." Natalie said firmly, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Okay, okay. Come on. Let's get some fresh air."

"Fine."

Joe guided her out the front door and to a wrought-iron bench that sat between potted plants in front of the funeral home. There was a chill in the spring air, but the sun was shining. They sat next to each other on the bench silently.

"Do you want to talk about anything?"

"Absolutely not."

"Okay."

Natalie looked up at him. "Can you just hold me?"

Her tone was almost pleading, Joe realized. Allowing him to hold her was a rarity; even in bed, she was a brief cuddler, always wriggling away from him as he was about to fall asleep. His brow jumped in surprise as she laid her cheek against his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso. He slipped one arm around her waist and lightly stroked her hair with the other hand.

"I love you." Natalie murmured into his chest.

"I love you, too."

* * *

In the end, Jason had made the decision to cremate his father-in-law and have his ashes buried I the same cemetery as Natalie's mother, but not in the same area. It was a decision that Natalie had seemed satisfied with, mostly because she hadn't had to make it herself. After lunch, the three returned to the hotel because Natalie felt sick and wanted to lie down, and Joe had run out to get some things to help her feel better.

"I'm still trying to figure out how in the hell it's possible to make gluten-free crackers, but, someone must have figured it out because here they are." Joe announced dropping a bag from a nearby pharmacy on the bed. He held up the crackers for Natalie's inspection.

Natalie nodded her approval. "Thank you."

"And the ginger ale…" Joe set a bottle of Canada Dry on the nightstand.

"Thank you again."

Joe hesitated for a moment before placing the final item in the bag on the nightstand next to the soda. "And… This."

Natalie's mouth fell open as she looked at the purchase. "Are you fucking kidding me with that?"


	7. Chapter 7

The hot pink box sat on the table between them as Natalie fixed her glare on Joe. "I can't believe that you are arrogant enough to think that you would know I was pregnant before I would. What even possessed you to buy this?"

"You were throwing up today on two different occasions." Joe pointed out.

Natalie snorted. "Yeah, from stress."

"So today was the only time that's happened?" Joe was skeptical.

Natalie suddenly became very interested in the stitching pattern on the bedspread. "I mean, there have been a couple of other times from stress at work lately, but…"

"Passing out at work." Joe had started ticking off his reasons on his fingers.

"Pneumonia." Natalie argued. "And again, stress at work, on top of it. You of all people know what that fucking job is like."

"You've been uncharacteristically affectionate toward me." Joe added another finger to his tally. "You actually let me cuddle you."

Natalie laughed. "Not a pregnancy symptom that I've ever heard of."

"Okay, well, how about this one? You haven't had your period in a while."

Natalie did a double take and her mouth fell open. "What the fuck? Are you tracking my cycle or something?"

"No!" Joe quickly defended himself. "I just generally notice a sex void a few days a month, with an even bitchier streak than usual a few days before, and I can't remember the last time there was one."

If Natalie were being honest with herself, she would have realized that she couldn't remember the last time either; she had never been very regular on account of her eating disorders, so it hadn't really concerned her.

"I don't know." Natalie shrugged nonchalantly. "I've never been the type to keep a calendar of it."

"We've been sloppy with condoms, and you're not on the Pill."

Natalie opened her mouth to argue, but she stopped and considered what Joe said. There had been a few days when they'd run out of condoms, but had shrugged it off and continued on without them.

Then, there was the time in her office. That time in the shower. The one in her convertible.

She realized that saying they were "sloppy" was an understatement; they'd been completely reckless.

"Okay, _that_ one is true…" Natalie admitted.

"And _that_ one alone is enough to validate my concern since unprotected sex is what _causes_ pregnancy."

Natalie threw her hands up dramatically. " _Shit_ , that's what causes it? Why didn't you warn me about this before?"

Joe rolled his eyes at her facetious attitude. "You can use sarcasm as a defense mechanism all you want, but it doesn't change the facts."

"Don't you think the hospital would have tested me when I was there if they thought that was a possibility?" Natalie reasoned.

"Did you give them any reason to think it _was_ a possibility?"

Natalie thought for a moment. "No, I guess not. I still don't think it is."

Joe sighed. "If you're so sure you're right, then why are you afraid to take the damn test? Just do it, and if you're right, you get to prove me wrong. That's your favorite hobby; you should be excited about it."

Their eyes locked while he looked at her expectantly. He watched as she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before opening them to meet his again.

"I'm afraid of the damn test because I had three miscarriages when I was with Jason." Natalie said quietly.

"I know." Joe responded gently.

"Fuck, he told you that, too?" Natalie's mood quickly shifted from quiet and pensive to angry. "What else did he tell you? My vaccination history? The name of my stuffed bear from childhood? My bank account balance and credit score? My college GPA? My favorite sexual position?"

"Well, I figured that last one out on my own…" Joe was hit squarely in the face by a pillow that Natalie flung at him, but he was unfazed. "I get it. You're scared."

"On the very, very, _very_ off-chance that it is positive… I can't handle that again. Clinical depression and refusing to eat after the last one is what landed me in the hospital with a feeding tube. I didn't even care if I lived anymore." Natalie confessed.

Joe inhaled sharply, not wanting to imagine the kind of pain Natalie must have been in when she ended up in that condition. He also knew that a confession of that magnitude was not easy for her. He sat slowly beside her on the bed, resting his hand comfortingly on her leg.

"You're jumping a few steps ahead here." Joe said gently, squeezing her thigh. "You've doomed yourself to miscarry when the pregnancy test is still in the box."

"I know." Natalie raked a hand through her curled hair. "It's hard not to feel like it'd be doomed if I were pregnant, but again, I think you're wrong. So, how are you going to feel if it's negative?"

"Disappointed." Joe admitted.

Natalie turned to look at him with a raised brow. "Really?"

Joe shrugged. "I think I'd make an okay dad."

In that moment, Natalie reflected on Joe's caring nature, which he tried and failed to keep hidden under a gruffer exterior. He genuinely cared about people and was willing to sacrifice himself to help them. There were a lot of parts to him that would make a great father.

"You would." Natalie said softly. "But I don't want you to get your hopes up. Even if it's positive, I…"

"One thing at a time." Joe interrupted. "Starting with taking the test."

He grabbed the box off of the nightstand and pressed it into her hand. Looking down at it, Natalie chewed on one of her glossy lips before finally nodding and standing up. He wasn't going to let it go until she took it. Joe followed closely behind her as she walked toward the bathroom with test in hand.

Natalie whirled around, looking annoyed. "Uh, can I do this part alone, or are you going to stand over me like it's a drug test?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Joe said sheepishly, backing away.

Joe waited impatiently outside the bathroom door. It felt like she was in there for an eternity before he finally heard the toilet flush and the sound of the sink as she washed her hands. The bathroom door cracked open shortly after that.

"There. I peed on your stick." Natalie gestured toward the bathroom counter where it laid.

"Well, that's something we've never tried before." Joe smirked.

Natalie crinkled her nose. "Ew."

Joe joined Natalie in the bathroom and stood at the counter, squinting down at the white stick.

Natalie crossed her arms, half amused. "Are you going to stand there and watch it?"

"I've never seen how one works before."

"It shows one pink line to show it's working, and if I were actually pregnant, there would be a second pink line." Natalie explained.

Joe's eyes went from squinted to wide as he pointed at the test window with one finger. "You mean like that one?"


	8. Chapter 8

"What?" Natalie's jaw dropped. "There's no way you're looking at that right. "This is one reason why people have kids when they're younger; because they can see the damn pregnancy tests better."

"I'm not looking at it wrong."

"It's only been a couple of minutes, and you can't see shit up close without your glasses."

"I don't even _need_ my glasses to see these two bold pink lines."

"How can it already be positive?

"See for yourself, then." Joe picked up the test and held it out to her, a grin breaking out across his face. "You're pregnant, Nat."

Her hands trembled as she accepted the test and scrutinized it. One hand covered her mouth in disbelief; he was actually right. Two strong pink lines had appeared in the test window. She was transported back to three other times she had seen those lines, only for no baby to follow. Leaning back against the bathroom counter to support her shaking body, she continued to stare down at it.

"Oh my God. You knocked me up." Natalie finally said, her hand absently drifting over her flat abdomen.

Joe searched her face for signs of emotion. "I can't tell what you're feeling right now."

"That makes two of us." Natalie half laughed. "I really thought you were insane for buying the test."

"Are you more shocked that I'm right or that you're pregnant?" Joe teased, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her toward him.

"Probably that you were actually right about something for once." Natalie said.

"We could talk somewhere more comfortable than the bathroom."

"Good idea."

Leaving the stick on the counter, they walked back into main hotel room. Joe sat on the couch and Natalie laid down on it with her head in his lap. Like he'd pointed out, she was more affectionate than usual. While he waited for her to speak, his fingers tugged on her curls, pulling them taut and watching them spring back up; he loved doing that.

"I'm so scared right now, Joe." Natalie whispered. "I felt happy for a split second when you said you saw the lines, then I just felt terrified. I'm so afraid to lose another pregnancy."

"You can't live in fear."

"You don't know what it's like to have your body fail you like that, time after time." Natalie pointed out. "A woman's body is supposed to be made to carry babies, and mine couldn't."

"Yours _didn't_ at that time." Joe corrected. "That doesn't mean it _can't._ It may not have been you. Did a doctor tell you that couldn't? I don't know the specifics of what happened. Jason just said you'd had three miscarriages."

Natalie sighed, not really feeling like rehashing the history, but feeling like she owed it to Joe. "It was five years ago. They were all close together, and they were pretty early on. The longest was nine weeks. The doctor said there were probably chromosomal abnormalities since they were early."

"Then it's time for you to stop beating yourself up over them."

"I wish it were that easy."

Joe thought for a moment. "Let's play 'what if.' What if it were impossible for you to miscarry, and you knew for sure everything would turn out okay? How would you feel?"

"This game isn't realistic."

"That's why it's a game. Just play along." Joe urged.

"I would be ecstatic. Elated. Over the moon. _So_ fucking happy that I was _finally_ getting what I always wanted, that I could be a mother and raise a child with the man I love."

Joe smiled, brushing his hand over her cheek. "Then I think that's how you _really_ feel under all of the being scared. Try to feel more that way. The fear is just overwhelming you right now. We have to take it a day at a time."

"How do _you_ feel?" Natalie asked, tracing shapes with her fingernail on his arm.

"So fucking happy. Over the moon. Whatever the rest of the stuff was that you said… That, too."

Natalie finally cracked a smile. "Really?"

"Yes. This is the most wonderful surprise I could have asked for."

"It _is_ pretty amazing."

"Why would have turned positive so quickly?" Joe asked. "Remember, I don't know how those stick thingies work."

"They measure the amount of the pregnancy hormone in your system." Natalie explained. "If there's a lot of it, it can show up more quickly."

"Is it bad if there's a lot of it?"

"No… It could actually be a good thing. It might mean I'm several weeks along. Or, it might mean nothing. We won't know without an ultrasound."

"I can't wait."

"Shit. I've already done so many things wrong." Natalie realized, sitting up with a start. "I was drinking wine last night at dinner. I had a chest x-ray in the hospital. I took God knows what steroids and antibiotics for the pneumonia. We had sushi last week. I'm sure there's more. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

"You didn't know." Joe comforted her, pulling her back into his arms. "You can't undo any of that. You think Japanese women don't eat sushi when they're pregnant? And I heard somewhere that some European women drink wine when they're pregnant. It could be a lot worse. It's not like you were smoking crack."

Natalie rolled her eyes, resting her cheek on his chest. "Well, that makes me feel a lot better. I wasn't shooting heroin or smoking meth either, so I guess we can add that to the good list, too."

"See? There's always a positive."

"Literally, in this case."

"Are you going to say anything to Jason?"

"No." Natalie shook her head and repeated herself. "My losses were his losses, too. I don't want to rub this in his face. He'll find out eventually, but… Not now."

"Good." Joe murmured into her hair. "He seems to like me right now. He might not after he finds out about this."

"Oh, _please_ don't tempt me to tell him. I would _love_ to break up the little bromance you two have going."

"I want you to know something."

"What?"

Joe put his finger under her chin and tipped her face up to look at him. "I just want you to know that whatever happens… It's going to be okay. We'll get through it, and I'm going to love you no matter what."

"I love you too."

* * *

 _I really never intended to make her pregnant in this fic, but it just kind of happened. I may be obsessed with the idea of these two having a baby, haha. I plan to make it very different from Life Sentence. As always, I'm open to ideas and requests._


	9. Chapter 9

"A bottle of Merlot?" Jason asked at dinner later that evening.

"Sure." Natalie said automatically, continuing to scan the menu.

Joe cleared his throat. "Are you sure that's a great idea with the, uh, headache you had earlier?"

"Oh." Natalie's eyes widened slightly as she looked up; she'd given her usual response, forgetting her condition. "You're right. I'll have a sparkling water instead."

Jason looked at Natalie with suspicion but didn't say anything and ordered a beer for himself. The three chatted idly about their plans for leaving the next day while they waited for their food to arrive.

"I'm glad to see that you're eating something." Jason nodded to the plate of grilled chicken, asparagus, and a baked potato that the waiter set down front of Natalie.

One of the realizations Natalie had in those first few hours of knowing about her pregnancy was that she would have to eat – healthily and consistently.

"Well, I can't go on not eating forever, can I?" Natalie muttered.

"Well, it hasn't really stopped you before." The words were out of Jason's mouth before he could stop them, and the hurt expression on her face made him wish he had. They ate in awkward silence for several minutes.

"Do you want to try my salmon?" Joe asked, holding a forkful of it in front of Natalie.

"Um…" Natalie eyed the pink piece of fish dangling in front of her face. The smell hit her nose and caused a wave of nausea. "No… I'll... I'll be right back."

Jason watched Natalie get up and hurry away from the table and sighed as his suspicions were confirmed. "She's pregnant, isn't she?"

"What?!" Joe asked, bewildered. "Why would you think that?"

"At what other point in time have you ever seen her drink sparkling water?"

"I don't know." Joe struggled to think of an explanation. "She's kind of fancy, so is it really that weird?"

"It's to try to help with the nausea. And, she's actually eating, or at least trying to."

"She's trying to be better about it." Joe shrugged.

Jason pointed his fork with a piece of steak on the end of it at Joe's fish. "But that... That was the kicker."

"Why?" Joe looked confused.

"She can't be around salmon when she's pregnant. The smell makes her sick."

"Ahh, shit. I didn't know that." Joe groaned, starting to eat his fish faster so it'd be gone by the time Natalie got back.

"How would you?" Jason asked, a hint of bitterness in his tone. He stabbed his fork through another piece of meat, hard.

"We only found out today, seriously. She didn't want to tell you because she didn't want to hurt you."

Jason nodded tersely. "Right. Got it."

The two men focused on the food in front of them until Natalie slid back into her seat a few minutes later. "Sorry about that."

"I hear congratulations are in order." Jason said shortly.

Natalie stared wide-eyed at Joe. "You can't be fucking serious. You told him?!"

"He figured it out." Joe sighed. "The fish."

"Oh." Natalie mumbled.

"I hope it turns out better for the two of you than it did for the two of us." Jason managed, finishing off the beer in front of him.

* * *

The rest of the meal was hell, with no one wanting to speak. When they got back to the hotel room, Natalie's hands were all over Joe as soon as the door was closed.

"What's gotten into you? Are you turned on by probably devastating your soon-to-be-ex-husband?"

"No. I'm turned on by _you_." Natalie said, pulling her shirt off over her head.

Pushing Joe back onto the bed, Natalie bent down to draw him into a deep kiss. He kissed her back enthusiastically at first until worry suddenly set into his mind.

"Wait." Joe pulled back from her. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"This is _always_ a good idea." Natalie practically purred at him, moving her hands under his shirt.

Joe swallowed hard; she was always difficult to resist. "I mean, you're pregnant, and… What if something hurts the baby?"

Natalie rolled her eyes. "I know you have a big dick, Beer Can, but you know it's still not actually possible for you to fuck me in the uterus, right?"

"I know that, but maybe we should wait until you have an appointment."

Natalie groaned and rolled back over, flinging her head back against the pillows. "Seriously? We've already been having sex for however long I've been pregnant."

"I'd feel better about it if we waited."

"Fine." Natalie relented.

"That doesn't mean we can't do _anything_ , though…" Joe said with a grin, moving to straddle her legs.

"Oh?" Natalie bit her lip. "What did you have in mind?"

"Something you enjoy very, very much…" Joe smirked as he unbuttoned Natalie's pants, quickly ridding her of them and her panties. He lowered his head between her legs to a moan of approval.

* * *

After they traded pleasure with each other, Joe fell asleep comfortably in the bed, but Natalie was alert and thinking about how things had gone with Jason. Quietly, she put her clothes back on and headed downstairs to the hotel lounge. She spotted Jason at the bar, as she'd expected to.

"Hi." Natalie slid onto the bar stool beside of him.

"Hey." Jason didn't look up from the glass in his hand.

"Are you okay?" Natalie asked quietly.

Jason had been sitting at the bar, thinking, since they'd returned to the hotel from dinner. He was turning his thoughts and feelings about Natalie being pregnant with another man's baby over in his head and washing them down with whiskey.

Jason had figured out that he wasn't _angry_ with Natalie and Joe. The sinking feeling that he had in his stomach felt more like something else.

Regret.

It was crazy, he knew, especially since he had left her, but there was part of him that felt that it should have been _their_ baby – his baby.

"I was a jackass at dinner, Nati. I'm sorry."

Natalie recognized by the nickname (that she'd only ever let _him_ call her – she would deck anyone else who tried to) and his slight slur that he was a little drunk. "It's not like I expected you to take it cheerfully, given… Everything."

"I fucked up your life, and you should get to be happy now. You've always wanted a baby, and I hope this one that Joe gave you is okay since I couldn't ever give you a healthy baby."

Natalie closed her eyes. "Jason…"

"It could be me, you know. Maybe I have bad sperm." Jason took a long drink of his whiskey. "You've blamed yourself, but it could just as easily have been me. If there were chromosomal abnormalities, I mean, it could've just—."

Natalie reached over and took his hand. "Stop. Please."

Jason stared back into his drink. "I'm sorry that you found out about Gavin and me by seeing us kiss, too."

Natalie furrowed her brow. "How did you know about that?"

"Joe."

Natalie inhaled sharply and dropped Jason's hand, though she wasn't really surprised by that point that Jason and Joe had shared yet another of her secrets. "Damn it, Joe. Are you fucking him behind my back, too? You aren't going to bring him to the gay side of the Force, are you?"

Jason flinched at her biting words. "Ouch."

Natalie sighed. "Sorry. I didn't mean that, I just…"

"He adores you, you know." Jason interrupted.

"I know. I think he's a glutton for punishment."

Jason raised a brow as he took a sip of his drink. "You still don't believe you're worthy of anyone loving you."

Natalie scoffed. "Not to point out the obvious, but you didn't exactly help with that, you know."

"Touché."

"Can I ask you something?" Natalie asked suddenly.

Since they were getting everything out in the open, there was something that she needed to know; something that had been torturing her for months.

"Shoot."

"When we were young and in love, and then when we got married… Did you ever think there'd be a time when we wouldn't be?"

Jason shook his head and answered without hesitating. "Not once."

"So, does that mean that you didn't know that you were gay, or bisexual, or whatever it is that you identify as when we got married?"

"No. I didn't."

"I've just wondered how long you've been living this lie... If there were other men. If I'm just totally fucking blind because I didn't realize it."

"Just Gavin. I can't explain it. There was an attraction and flirtation. One day we were kissing in my office, then we just…"

"Okay then." Natalie held her hand up. "You can spare me the gory details. I just wanted to know if I'd always been your beard and if the last fifteen years of my life had all been a lie."

"No." Jason sighed. "Nati, I was very much in love with you. I'll always care about you."

"I'll always care about you, too." Natalie whispered.

"Let yourself be happy with Joe." Jason advised. "Let him love you."

"I'm trying."


	10. Chapter 10

When Natalie returned to their hotel room, she slipped in quietly, trying not to wake Joe. Slowly, she unzipped her suitcase and opened it to look for her nightgown. She stopped suddenly, seeing a white envelope with her name on it lying on top of her clothes. Apparently, Joe had rescued the letter from her father from the table at the funeral home and tucked it in her suitcase. Biting her lip, she debated whether she should read it or trash it.

Closure. She decided she needed closure.

With trembling hands, she opened the letter and unfolded it. It didn't take long to read; it was just three sentences.

 _I'm sorry about everything, Natibug. I love you. -Dad_

"Too little too fucking late, Dad." Natalie mumbled, her eyes filling with tears.

A lost childhood. A fucked-up adulthood without a family. All he could say was sorry? She flung the piece of paper down on the floor and sank down beside it, sobbing. It didn't take long for her loud crying to wake Joe, who sat up in bed in alarm and threw back the covers.

"What is it? Are you okay? What's wrong?" Joe asked frantically. "Is it the baby?"

Natalie shook her head.

"What then?"

"That." Natalie managed to say, pointing at the letter on the floor. "I read that."

"May I…?" Joe hesitantly gestured at the discarded paper.

"Sure, go ahead." Natalie choked out between sobs.

Joe picked the piece of paper up and held it close to his face where he could see it with his sleep-blurred eyes and without his glasses.

Joe sighed, moving to sit next to her on the floor. "Oh, Nat…"

Natalie buried her face in his chest and sobbed. Joe held her securely against him with one arm while stroking her long curls with the other as she cried. He mumbled words of comfort and encouragement into her ear, rocking her back and forth.

It was the breakdown he had been expecting all week. She openly wept in his arms for a half an hour before she finally settled down, sniffling and wiping at her red, puffy eyes. Numbness took the place of the crying, and he felt her body limpening with exhaustion in his arms.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Joe murmured in her ear, releasing her from his embrace and heading toward the bathroom.

A couple of minutes later, Joe returned from the bathroom with a warm, wet washcloth, which he used to start dabbing at the black rings of mascara and eyeliner that were smudged all around Natalie's eyes from her tears. At first, she wanted to pull away, to grab the washcloth from him and do it herself. But Jason's words echoed in her head.

 _Let him love you._

She allowed him to wipe the black and taupe streaks of her eye makeup from her face. It reminded her of when she had wiped the blood from his nose when he'd been punched in the face. When he finished with her eyes, he carefully cleansed the makeup from the rest of her face, then laid the colorfully streaked white washcloth on the coffee table in front of them.

He'd brought back a hairbrush too, she realized. Starting at the ends of her hair, seemingly knowing what he was doing, he gently brushed the curls she'd carefully twisted her hair into that morning into long, soft waves down her back. It had been years since someone had brushed her hair with the tender care that he was putting into it; maybe not since her mother was alive. The love behind the simple gesture brought fresh tears to her eyes.

When he finished with her hair, he went over to her suitcase and dug through it until he found a nightgown and clean underwear. He helped her out of the clothes she was wearing and into the clean ones, then guided her over to the bed. Wordlessly, she laid down on her side toward the wall, curling her legs up toward her chest. With a flick of his fingers, Joe turned off the light and laid down beside her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back again his chest in a close embrace.

For the first time, she stayed in his arms all night.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Joe asked the next morning as Natalie was fastening her silver hoop earrings in her ear.

Natalie took a deep breath, trying to keep herself from getting annoyed that it was at least the sixth time he'd asked her that. "I'm fine; I swear. I think I needed to totally fucking lose it so I can move on."

"Okay. If you say so." Joe said uncertainly.

"It's time to leave the past where it is… We have an unexpected future to think about." Natalie said as Joe wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his hands on her stomach. "Like what the hell are we going to do with a kid?"

Joe chuckled. "I have no fucking clue."

"Maybe no one ever does."

There was a knock at the door.

"That's probably Jason." Joe said. "Do you want me to get it?"

"No… It's fine." Natalie said, walking to the door.

Joe didn't know that they'd had a heart to heart the night before. When she opened the door, her soon-to-be ex-husband was on the other side, holding two cups of coffee in his hands.

Jason's form of a peace offering.

"You guys ready to go?"

"Almost."

"It's decaf." Jason said softly, as he extended one of the cups to her.

Natalie nodded and thanked him, but what she was noticing as she took the cup from him was that his left ring finger was bare for the first time in fifteen years. She'd long since stopped wearing her wedding and engagement rings, locking them away in their safe in the house in Albany. The golden band had remained on his, "for show"; his taking it off could only mean one thing.

The show was finally over.

* * *

 _I would LOVE to have suggestions for an arc here because the next idea I have planned isn't until further down the road. PLEASE let me hear your suggestions and what you'd like to see because I am stuck!_


	11. Chapter 11

Natalie lightly tapped her pen on her desk in boredom as she listened to Linda drone on about more cuts to the prison's budget. Linda glared at the pen, and Natalie tossed it onto her desk. She leaned back in her chair and sighed, folding her hands over the swell of her stomach instead. The strained relationship between Natalie and Linda had only become tenser the rounder that Natalie's stomach grew with Joe's child.

The weeks and months of her pregnancy had flown by quickly. To their surprise, she was already eleven weeks pregnant at her first doctor's appointment. Natalie had been worried about the changes to her body, but at thirty weeks pregnant, she looked like she'd swallowed a ball with very little evidence of her pregnancy elsewhere on her body.

The baby moved in her stomach, and she tapped back at it lightly in greeting. They hadn't found out whether it was a boy or a girl, at Joe's insistence. It drove Natalie crazy as she liked control and order, and she didn't care for surprises. But she'd finally given in and they'd almost finished the baby's teal, gender neutral nursery.

"Are you even listening, Natalie?" Linda asked in annoyance.

"Yes. I'm listening." Natalie sighed. "Just like I've been listening for the last hour."

Natalie's suddenly phone lit up, buzzing across her desk with an incoming call from an unfamiliar number. She breathed as a sigh of relief at the distraction from their tortuous conversation, grabbing it off her desk to answer it.

"Are you seriously answering your fucking phone in the middle of our meeting?"

Natalie flicked her index finger up at Linda and smiled sweetly as she answered the call. Linda sat there sputtering as the smile faded from Natalie's face as she listened to the voice on the other end. Without a word to Linda, she stood up and grabbed her purse.

"Now you're just going to take off while we're talking?! How dare y—"

Natalie spun on her heel to face Linda, a grim expression on her face. "Joe's in the hospital. He had a heart attack."

* * *

When Natalie first saw Joe, she gasped, thinking immediately that he looked dead. Only the persistent beeping of the monitors reassured her that he wasn't. His face was ashen and various tubes and wires ran over his body. Natalie walked further into the room slowly, carefully watching the green line of his EKG move up and down.

Joe opened his eyes at the sound of her high heels on the black and white floor tiles and smiled slightly. "Nat."

With relief evident on her face, Natalie walked over to the bed and crossed her arms. "You are not allowed to knock me up and then die on me, Joseph Caputo. It's bad form."

"Fuck, did they tell you I'm dying?" Joe chuckled softly. "I hadn't heard about that."

"No." Natalie sat gingerly on the edge of the bed beside him and laced her fingers through his, carefully avoiding the wires and tubes connected to him. "They did tell me they're getting you an OR for an angioplasty as soon as possible, though."

"That's what they told me, too."

Natalie pressed her lips to the back of Joe's hand in a light kiss. "Are you in pain?"

"No. They have me pretty doped up."

"Well, you look like shit."

"You're always so sweet to me, honey." Joe reached out with one hand and caressed her stomach, smiling as their child moved back against the touch. "How's little Freddie or Jocelyn?"

"I don't care if you had a heart attack. We're still not using either of those names." Natalie said as Joe's hand lingered on her bump. "But the baby's good. Using my bladder as a trampoline as usual. Otherwise annoying me in ways only a child of yours could."

Joe laughed. "That's my boy… Or girl. I love you. Both of you."

"We love you too." Natalie said softly, brushing her hand across his forehead.

Joe was quiet for a moment. "Can I be honest with you, Natalie?"

"Has anything ever stopped you before?" Natalie half laughed.

Joe clutched her hand in his and looked into her eyes. "I'm pretty scared right now."

Natalie was scared herself, but she didn't want to let Joe know that and make him worry more. The thought of losing the only person she still cared about and raising his child alone was terrifying. She adverted her eyes from his strong gaze and squeezed his hand. "You're going to be fine."

"I have some money set aside. It's not much, but, it'll help you…"

Natalie bit her glossed lip. "Joe, stop."

"I also made you the beneficiary on my life insurance after we found out you're pregnant. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to bump me off to buy a new wardrobe of Louboutins." Joe tried to joke to lighten the seriousness of their conversation.

"Please don't talk like this." Natalie said firmly, trying to will away the tears forming in her eyes.

"We have to talk like this." Joe said quietly, running his hand back and forth over her abdomen again. "It's not just about us, babe."

"I know." Natalie whispered, using the back of her fingertips to wipe tears from her eyes.

"I just want you both to be taken care of, if…" Joe's voice broke. "Please, just listen to what you may need to know."

Her heart sank as their baby rolled from one side of her belly to the other as she wondered if their child would ever know his or her father.

"Okay. I'm listening."


	12. Chapter 12

In the notes section of her iPhone, Natalie reluctantly typed the bank account and insurance information that Joe wanted her to have, pausing while a nurse to came in to check the bags hanging from Joe's IV stand.

"The anesthesiologist should be in to see you in a few minutes."

"Thanks." Natalie said to the nurse as she exited.

"I think that's probably all of the things you need to know to help you take care of the baby if I…" Joe trailed off.

"Stop that." Natalie said firmly, placing her phone on the table beside them. She moved out of the chair she was sitting in and settled next to Joe on the bed. "You're going to be changing disgusting diapers and stepping on Legos right alongside me. You're not getting out of this arrangement that easily."

Joe smiled weakly. "I hope you're right."

"Of course I'm right. Haven't you learned by now that I'm always right?" Natalie forced more confidence into her voice than she felt.

Joe reached up and caressed the side of her face. "God. I love you so much."

"I love you too." Natalie said softly, as Joe moved his hand down to her stomach.

It had taken some time for Natalie to become used to the attention that Joe lavished on her baby bump. She'd always been self-conscious about having her stomach touched, but she'd eventually realized that he just wanted to bond with their child. She covered his hand with her own, pressing their hands more tightly to her body. Joe smiled as the baby kicked at their hands.

"He's moving so much now." Joe commented.

"Constantly. You still think it's a boy, huh?"

"Maybe."

"Still not naming our kid after Freddie Mercury."

The door swung open and a middle-aged man in green scrubs entered the room. "Hello, I'm Dr. Gannon. I'll be your anesthesiologist for your angioplasty today."

"So, you're here to knock me out?" Joe asked.

"Actually… You'll be awake during the procedure, but sedated. I want you to be pretty loopy by the time we get back there, so I'm going to begin administering some drugs to you now. We'll head back soon." The doctor slowly injected various syringes of medication into Joe's IV.

Joe looked up at Natalie drowsily a few minutes later. "If I live through this, will you marry me?"

Natalie laughed nervously and glanced back at the anesthesiologist, who was pretending not to hear their conversation by busying himself with writing notes in Joe's chart. "That was fast. What the hell did you give him?"

"Versed and fentanyl." Dr. Gannon replied.

Natalie turned back to face her boyfriend. "You're going to live through this, Joe."

"But will you? Someday?"

The thought of marriage made Natalie anxious; she'd only been divorced from Jason for a few months. There was no question that she loved Joe and wanted to have a life with him and their child, but something about making their relationship legal with a label frightened her. It was a decision that required more than an anesthesia-fueled, hospital bedside proposal.

But Natalie realized that as high as Joe was, there was a good chance that he wouldn't even remember asking her after the procedure was over.

"Okay. Someday." Natalie squeezed his hand.

* * *

While Joe was in surgery, Natalie sat alone in the waiting room, idly scrolling through her emails on her phone to keep herself busy. She didn't even glance up until someone sat down next to her and tapped her lightly in the leg. Startled, she jumped and was surprised to look up and see a familiar face.

"Jason!" Natalie exclaimed in shock. "What are you doing here?"

"How's Joe doing?" Jason asked instead of answering her question.

"He's in surgery having an angioplasty. How did you even know? Don't tell me you're one of his emergency contacts, too."

Jason chuckled. "No, no… I was bringing over some paperwork to your office about selling the house for you to look at, and your secretary told me what happened."

"Oh good." Natalie grumbled. "She's fired when I go back to work."

"Don't be that way, Nat. She was worried about you, especially with being pregnant and… Wow." Jason's eyes widened as they finally landed on Natalie's stomach.

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Thanks, just what every pregnant woman wants to hear."

"I haven't seen you in months." Jason pointed out. "You barely looked pregnant in divorce court, but you... I mean the baby has… Grown."

"That's what they do." Natalie folded her hands over her stomach.

"It suits you." Jason said quietly. "I always thought it would."

"Have you and Gavin thought about having kids?" Natalie wasn't sure why she was asking, but there was a part of her that was curious. "I know you wanted to be a father…"

"We've talked about it, but we think we'd like to get married first. We're an old-fashioned gay couple." Jason joked, making Natalie smile despite the situation.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Are Joe and I crazy, Jason? Are we too old to be doing this?"

"I think you're several months late to be asking that question… So to speak." Jason gestured toward Natalie's round stomach, smirking a little at his own joke.

"Seriously. What if Joe dies now? What if one or both of us dies while this baby is still a kid? I'm not young, and he's several years older than I am."

Jason shrugged. "Life in general is a crapshoot. Your mom died when she was in her thirties. Joe could have this heart attack and still live to be 100. Who knows? Does anyone ever know?"

"I guess not." Natalie sighed.

"Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you _always_ try to think of ways to keep from being happy?" Jason asked, locking eyes with her.

"I don't _try_ to. I've had a hell of a year, you might recall, and now this." Natalie's voice broke as her eyes filled with tears. "I can't lose Joe too. I love him, and I… I can't raise this baby myself."

"I don't think there's much of _anything_ you can't do, Nati." Jason murmured, looping an arm around Natalie's shoulders. "You've waited a long time for this. You're going to be a hell of a mom."

Natalie wiped the tears from her eyes. "All this time, I was so afraid of being pregnant and losing the baby that I never thought to be scared of being a parent."


	13. Chapter 13

After his angioplasty, Joe fell asleep in recovery. He woke to find himself in a regular room with his girlfriend sitting in a nearby chair, flipping through a fashion magazine.

"Hey."

Natalie tossed her magazine on the bedside table and moved to sit next to Joe on the bed. "Hey you."

"What's up?"

"The good news is that you did very well with the procedure."

"What's the bad news?"

"The bad news is that I drained your bank accounts and went online shopping while you were back there." Natalie teased.

"With your expensive taste, it wouldn't have lasted you long." Joe chuckled softly.

"Champagne taste with a Beer Can budget." Natalie smirked. "Seriously, how are you feeling?"

"Not too terrible." Joe reached over and curled his hand around hers. "Glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see you, too."

"You should probably head home soon though."

Natalie ran her hand down the side of his face. "I'm not going anywhere. That beautiful teal pleather couch over there turns into a bed."

"Oh Nat, don't be ridiculous. You're too pregnant to sleep on that thing. You can barely get comfortable enough to sleep in our real bed."

"I'll be fine." Natalie argued. "I…"

"What?"

Natalie was thinking how weird it would be to go back to his house and sleep alone in his bed, without him. She couldn't go back to the house in Albany even if she wanted to. It was under contract to be sold, and most of her and Jason's stuff had been moved out into storage.

"I don't want to leave you." Natalie shrugged. "That's all. Don't let it go to your head."

Joe smiled. "I'll try not to."

* * *

Within a couple of days, Joe had recovered enough to go home. While he waited for final approval for the doctor to discharge him, Natalie met Jason for lunch in the hospital cafeteria to review the paperwork he'd tried to bring her the day Joe had his heart attack.

"Sign that one, too." Jason said, pointing to a yellow flag.

"Is that the last one?"

"Yes, I think so."

Natalie slid the paperwork over to him. "There. It's done."

"I need my pen back." Jason reminded her.

"You and your fancy ass pens." Natalie handed Jason his pen, then winced.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked. He noticed she had placed one hand on her stomach.

"Nothing, I've just had some cramping today. That's all."

Jason raised his eyebrows in concern. "Cramping like contractions?"

"I don't think so." Natalie shook her head. "I would know if they were contractions, right?"

Jason shrugged. "You should know by now that I don't have a uterus. You need to get it checked out."

"I'm sure it's nothing." Natalie waved her hand dismissively.

"Would you bet your child's life on it? Because that's what you may be doing."

"Jesus, Jason, you're a politician. Haven't you learned to sugar coat things by now?"

"I'm trying to get through to your stubborn ass head. You are literally sitting in a hospital. There is no reason not to get checked."

"But Joe is getting discharged today, and I don't want to stress him out right after he's had a fucking heart attack."

"What would _really_ stress him out is you having a premature baby when it maybe could have been prevented." Jason argued.

"God, I'd almost forgotten how fucking annoying you are."

"I'll go with you." Jason's voice softened a little. "Okay?"

"Fine."

* * *

Without being asked, Jason stepped outside the room in labor and delivery triage while Natalie was examined to protect her modesty, which seemed strange and somewhat ridiculous after they'd been together for so many years.

But they were no longer married, and the baby inside her ever-growing stomach wasn't his.

She texted him to let him know when it was okay to come back in. They were sitting there quietly for a few minutes when an older man in a white lab coat came through the door.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Hamlin. I'm taking care of Natalie and the baby today. Oh, here you go."

Before Jason could say anything, the doctor thrust a strip of black and white ultrasound photos into Jason's hand and began talking to Natalie. At first, he tried not to look at them, but curiosity got the better of him.

Jason and Natalie's third baby, the one in the ultrasound in his desk, looked more like a bean than anything human. But the one in the pictures in his hand looked like a real baby. He could easily make out the profile of its face, a tiny pair of knees, a hand with little fingers. He inhaled sharply when he realized that the last picture was actually a three-dimensional view of the baby's face, caught mid-yawn; he was shocked by how much the baby looked like Natalie when she herself yawned.

His stomach twisted in a mixture of regret and jealousy. In another life, that baby would have been his, too.

"And this is the father?" Dr. Hamlin nodded to Jason.

Natalie cleared her throat. "Uh, no…"

Jason tore his eyes away from the strip of pictures. "Um, I'm actually her ex-husband."

"Oh. Okay. I apologize." The doctor looked slightly confused.

"The father had a heart attack and is being discharged from the cardiac unit today." Natalie explained.

"Ah." Dr. Hamlin jotted some things down in Natalie's chart. "So obviously, you've been under some stress lately?"

"Yes, you could say that..."

"Have you been getting enough rest and drinking enough water?"

"Well…"

"No, she's been living here and worrying about him." Jason cut in.

Natalie glared at her former husband. "Thank you for that input."

Dr. Hamlin flipped through Natalie's chart. "I've looked at the ultrasound and the contraction monitor tape. From those and what you're saying, I'd say the contractions are being caused by mild dehydration and stress. Fortunately, the contractions have been pretty random and not very strong."

"So, I'm not in labor?"

"No. There haven't been any changes to your cervix. That's excellent news We will try some IV fluids to get you properly hydrated."

"Okay." Natalie said, releasing a sigh of relief that she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"I'll also send you home with a medication to help stop the contractions." Dr. Hamlin said, scribbling orders onto her chart. "I want you on bed rest for a few days, and you can follow up with your doctor. She can check you again and see if she wants to let you off of it or have you continue it. If anything gets worse, I want you to come right back here. Got it?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"I'll go ask your nurse to run some IV fluids, and I'll get your prescription written up." Dr. Hamlin said, then left the room.

"Um, here." Jason said, setting the strip of ultrasound photos on the bed next to Natalie.

"Oh." Natalie said softly, picking them up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Natalie didn't believe him, but decided not to press the matter if he didn't want to talk about it. She changed the subject instead.

"How in the hell are Joe and I _both_ going to be on bed rest? We aren't going to be able to do anything, and we're going to drive each other crazy."

"Well, you can get groceries delivered, and I can help you out… With meals and stuff, that is. I can't help you not drive each other crazy."

"You make a _way_ better ex-husband than you ever did a husband." Natalie laughed. "Do you need our two votes that badly for your re-election?"

Jason half-laughed. "I might once they figure out I'm gay."

The nurse came back in and hung a bag of IV fluids, attaching them to the saline lock they'd put in Natalie's hand when she got there, just in case.

"Seriously though… Thank you for coming up here with me."

"What kind of gay ex-husband would I be if I didn't take care of my ex-wife while she's pregnant with her boyfriend's baby?" Jason asked.

"Jesus, we sound like a bad soap opera." Natalie looked over at the nurse. "These people probably think we're insane."

"Nah, it's not the weirdest thing I've ever heard." The nurse chuckled. "Probably not the weirdest thing I'll even hear today."

"I bet you do see some crazy stuff." Jason said.

"You don't know the half of it." The nurse finished working on Natalie's IV. "Okay, just lie back and relax while that gets in your system."

"I'll go down and tell Joe what's going on." Jason said, standing. "You need anything else?"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

The nurse looked up from her paperwork at Natalie after Jason left the room. "He seems like a good man."

Natalie smiled slightly. "Yeah. He is."


	14. Chapter 14

"Okay, can you tell me what's going on? You've been really quiet all evening." Gavin said, appearing behind Jason in their bathroom mirror that evening as he finished brushing his teeth.

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you. Just tell me."

Jason met Gavin's eyes in the mirror as he put his toothbrush away. "I saw the ultrasound pictures… Of their kid."

"Ah, shit." Gavin sighed, walking up behind Jason to wrap his arms around his torso. "I'm sorry."

"It looked like a real baby. It had little toes and a face… It was crazy. The picture of its face was clear enough that it looked like a baby on the outside."

Gavin tightened his embrace. "I know that was hard."

"I wish that one of her pregnancies would have resulted in a baby so I would be a father right now." Jason sighed. "It must have been me because she seems to have no trouble carrying _his_ child _…_ At least she didn't until today."

"You don't know what really went wrong with the other pregnancies, and you're never going to." Gavin said gently. "Maybe it's better that way.

"I guess so."

"If you want to be a father, there are options we can talk about…" Gavin said, pressing his lips to Jason's shoulder. "I would love to raise a child with you."

"You would?" Jason asked, turning to face him.

"Of course."

Jason shook his head. "I'm not sure how many birth moms out there are looking to give their babies to a couple of gay men."

"You're also a senator with a pretty nicely loaded bank account." Gavin pointed out with a half- smile. "You're one of those 'rich gays.'"

Jason chuckled. "That's true."

"That's not the only option anyway. When you're ready… Let me know. We'll start talking more about it."

"Okay. I will."

* * *

"What do you think of this swing?" Natalie asked Joe, who laid in bed next to her. She turned her iPad to face him as he looked up from his book.

"You're going to max out your credit cards with all of this online shopping." Joe chuckled.

"It's not like there's anything else to do." Natalie grumbled. "I feel like we are half of the bed of grandparents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Joe took the iPad from her. "It looks like a swing. I don't know what else to tell you. A baby swing is a baby swing to me. It just needs to go back and forth, right?"

"Well, this one turns two directions and has lights, music, a mobile, Bluetooth connectivity, cry detection…"

"What the hell is cry detection? I mean, we'll be able to hear it cry. Right?"

"I think it auto-adjusts the swing settings based on sensing the baby cry." Natalie said, taking her iPad back and scrolling back through the description.

"That sounds really creepy."

Natalie shrugged and added it to her cart. "I think it could be useful."

"Our UPS guy is gonna hate you."

"I'm good for job security."

Joe brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. "Why don't you stop ordering baby stuff and start looking at wedding stuff?"

Natalie gave him a sideways glance from her iPad. "Say what?"

"Did you forget my marriage proposal that quickly?"

"Oh. Well, um…" Natalie fiddled with her iPad. "I kind of thought that was just the drugs talking."

"I see." Joe tried not to look hurt. "So, you just said 'yes' because you thought I was high, and you were afraid I might die?"

"Technically, I didn't say 'yes.' I said 'someday.'" Natalie corrected him. "And I meant that."

"What the hell does 'someday' even mean?" Joe asked, throwing his book to the side.

"It means that I haven't even been divorced for six months, and I'm not ready to jump back into marriage again yet. It doesn't mean that I love you any less."

"So, you'll have a child with me, which bonds us together for life no matter what, but you won't marry me?"

"Okay." Natalie set her iPad on the nightstand. "Let's remember that you got me pregnant by having us a quickie on my desk during my lunch break. That was not exactly a model for family planning. This baby wasn't planned like a marriage would be, so you can't really compare the two. Why are you in such a hurry?"

"We aren't getting any younger." Joe said, thinking of his recent health scare. "I want us to be a family."

"We're going to be a family! We've been happy together! We're living together." Natalie paused. "Why can't we just adjust to our new roles as parents, then think about marriage? This all happened so fucking fast."

Joe didn't respond, instead throwing back the covers and swinging his legs around the side of the bed to stand.

"Where are you going?" Natalie sighed. "You're supposed to stay in bed."

"I'm going to the couch. It's a bit chilly in here."

* * *

Joe had been absently watching a college football game on TV for an hour when there was a knock at the door. He found Jason standing on the other side of it.

"Hey, man." Joe greeted him, gesturing for him to come inside before he settled back on the couch.

"Hey. I brought you guys some Chinese food for dinner."

"Thank you."

Jason sat the paper bag full of food on the coffee table, looking over Joe's setup on the couch. "Looks like you're in the doghouse. What'd you do?"

"I asked her to marry me." Joe sighed.

Jason blinked several times in surprise. "Shit. Well, that's not what I was expecting. I feel like I need a beer for this conversation."

Joe pointed to the kitchen. "They're in the fridge door."

After retrieving a Heineken from the fridge, Jason returned to the living room, sitting next to Joe on the couch. "So, what happened?"

"When I was in the hospital, I asked her to marry me, but she thought I was just high on drugs." Joe explained.

"Well… _Were_ you high on drugs?"

"Yeah, I guess, but that doesn't mean I didn't mean it."

"Okay, go on."

"I mean, what else is there to say? I'm in love with her, she's having my baby, and I want to marry her. Is that really so crazy?"

"What did she say?"

"That we need to wait. That we don't need to rush into it."

Jason stared ahead at the football game in thought for several moments. "I'll speak impartially… Well, as impartially as I can after spending years married to the woman in question."

"Go for it."

Jason took a drink of his beer. "Neither one of you is wrong."

"Well, that's very diplomatic of you, Senator." Joe rolled his eyes.

"Seriously. You've had a life-changing event that made you realize your own mortality. She had a life-changing event that made her question love and commitment."

"It's _your_ fault that she had that event." Joe pointed out.

"Well, if she _hadn't_ had that event, she wouldn't _be_ with _you_ now at all, would she?" Jason countered.

"You still didn't have to treat her the way you did. Just because I'm happy we're together doesn't mean that I'm happy that you broke her fucking heart in the first place."

"You don't know me that well, but you know me some. Do you honestly think I married her thinking I was going to turn around and dick her over?"

"Literally." Joe scoffed.

"I know you just had a heart attack, but—"

"Oh Jesus, seriously?" Natalie interrupted from the stairs.

"You're supposed to be in bed." Joe said, at the same time that Jason said, "Get back in bed."

"What, can a pregnant lady not have Oreos now?" Natalie asked indignantly.

Jason smirked. "What happened to being gluten-free?"

"The baby decided it likes gluten." Natalie said, disappearing into the kitchen.

"And dairy, apparently." Jason added, watching as Natalie returned with a package of Double-Stuf Oreos and a glass of milk a minute later.

"The baby gets what the baby wants." Joe said with the hint of a smile.

"I'm glad to hear you guys fighting for a change." Natalie said.

"Seriously, go back to bed, Nat."

Natalie settled herself in the recliner, popping the foot of it open with the handle. "I'm allowed to be in a recliner with my feet up."

Jason watched in amusement as his ex-wife dug into the cookies. He'd never seen her _eat_ anything like that, let alone sit back and openly toss back Oreos in her pajamas.

"I just figured if there's a conversation about me, I should be included in it." Natalie said, twisting open one of her Oreos. "If you all weren't so fucking loudly yapping like teenaged girls, I wouldn't have had to have come down here"

"There's Chinese food here." Jason gestured to the bag he brought.

"Thank you, but, life's short. Eat dessert first." Natalie bit into the Oreo.

"That's the point I was trying to make to you, Natalie. Life _is_ short, and I had a fucking balloon in my chest the other day to prove it."

"I know you did, Joe. I get that." Natalie said, her voice softening slightly between bites of Oreo. "But getting married right away isn't going to make you feel any less afraid of dying."

"I never said I was afraid of dying."

"You didn't have to." Natalie said gently.

Joe sighed. "I guess you're right. I am scared. I just don't want to miss out on making a life with you now that I finally have you."

"Come here." Natalie said, scooting over on the recliner and patting the spot next to her.

"You don't think we'll break that fucking thing?" Joe laughed.

"Not unless you bought it at IKEA and put it together yourself." Natalie joked.

Joe sat down next to her in the recliner and pulled her close to him, his hand tracing circles on her stomach.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, jackass. Just hold off on the vows for a little while, okay?"

Jason shook his head, watching them while still working on his beer. "You two are absolutely fucking ridiculous, but it's cute. I ship it. I really do."

"You 'ship it,' really?" Natalie raised her eyebrow at Jason. "Where the hell did you get that?"

Jason shrugged. "I found it on Instagram."

"Put it back where you found it."

"Gavin has been helping me work on my social media presence to connect with young constituents."

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Of course he has."

"Speaking of, I should be getting back." Jason stood up and stretched. "He has some Skype session planned with a panel of college students upstate."

"Thank you for the food, Jason." Joe said.

"Yes… You've really gone above and beyond your ex-husbandly duties, and we really appreciate it." Natalie added.

"It's no problem. Oh…" Jason turned back toward them from the door. "If it makes you feel any better, Joe…"

"What?" Joe asked as Natalie quirked a brow.

"She told me 'no' the first time, too." Jason said, giving Joe a slight smile before closing the door behind him.

* * *

 _I have not even decided if this baby is a boy or a girl, hmmm... Cast your vote. :)_


	15. Chapter 15

"Those directions make no sense. Are you sure that's what they say?"

"I can read, Joe." Natalie said impatiently. "Quite well, actually."

Joe jerked the car seat around in the backseat of Natalie's car, a more practical SUV that she'd traded her convertible in for. "It's not locked in tightly at all."

"Well, that's what it says. I don't know what else to tell you. I can't get in there and do it for you." Natalie pointedly rested a hand on her 34-week pregnant bump. "I'll get stuck and never get back out."

Joe threw his hands up in frustration. "Well, what do you suggest then?"

Natalie leaned into the car as much as she could, examining Joe's installation. She glanced back and forth between the pictures on the instruction manual in her hand and the actual car seat until she thought she'd found the problem.

"Put your knee into the seat and pull on that strap." Natalie said, pointing.

"I thought I did pull that one."

"Try it again." Natalie insisted.

Joe rolled his eyes, but followed Natalie's instructions. He stepped back out of the car when he was done and tried to move the car seat. It wiggled only centimeters instead of the half a foot it was moving back and forth before.

"You were right." Joe admitted.

"Always."

"Thank God that's done."

"Mmm, you still have to put the other one in your car." Natalie reminded him.

Joe groaned. "Fuck, I forgot."

"You do look kind of sexy, all sweaty and working your muscles like that." Natalie said, nibbling on her lower lip.

"Yeah?" Joe grinned.

"Mmhm."

Joe wrapped his arms around Natalie's back and pulled her to him. He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead.

"My doctor said it's okay now." Joe murmured against her ear then kissed it.

Natalie shivered a little at the electricity she felt from his touch. "I know the _doctor_ did, but _he's_ not the one having sex with you."

"Thank God." Joe chuckled. "He's one ugly old man."

Natalie rolled her eyes. "I'm just worried that I'm going to hurt you."

"Well, I think I was more likely to have a heart attack from installing that car seat than I am from sex." Joe laughed. "And believe me, I'm way more concerned about hurting you and the baby than you should be about hurting me."

Natalie's stint with bedrest had been temporary, and she'd gone back to her regular (though quite pregnant) weeks before. Joe's recovery had also been uneventful, and the doctor had cleared him for normal activities.

"We're fine, but you…" Natalie hesitated. There was a part of her that thought Joe would immediately have another heart episode if he had sex with her.

"Let's just take it slow, Nat…" Joe laced his fingers through hers and brought her hand to his mouth for a kiss. "Okay?"

"You _promise_ you'll tell me if something hurts or doesn't feel right?" Natalie asked, locking eyes with Joe. "I'm not trying to kill you with weeks until our child is born."

"I swear… You think quite highly of yourself, don't you?" Joe snickered.

"Oh, maybe you've forgotten how much you enjoy me." Natalie said, crossing her arms.

"I don't really think that's possible, but let's go inside, and you can remind me.'" Joe said, amused.

Once they were in their bedroom, her fingers worked eagerly to unbutton his shirt. It had been weeks since they had been intimate, and to say she had missed it was an understatement. She tried to remind herself to take it easy as she practically ripped his pants and boxers off.

Joe lifted Natalie's shirt over her head and unfastened her bra, discarding both garments to the floor. He buried his face into the soft, fragrant skin of her neck, moving his lips along it in kisses as he palmed her rear, bringing her closer to his hardening length. Natalie pulled his face back to hers, joining their lips together as Joe pulled off her leggings and panties.

"How are we even going to do this?" Natalie was suddenly laughing through their kisses. "I think I've tripled in size since the last time we had sex. I'm a hippo."

"Stop that, babe." Joe caressed the side of her face and moved his hand to finger one of her bouncy curls. "You have never looked more beautiful to me than when you are carrying our child."

"You are _so_ full of shit." Natalie laughed.

"I mean it. You look so… Feminine."

"Feminine?" Natalie echoed.

"It's probably some sort of caveman instinct, but your body is a real turn-on."

"If you say so. How can we make this work?"

"What if you just take control?"

"You're not afraid I'll smash you to death?" Natalie looked at him doubtfully.

Joe snorted. "Do you even weigh 100 lbs., even almost fully pregnant?"

"Okay then. If you're sure you can handle it." Natalie pushed Joe gently backward onto the bed and crawled up his body, straddling his legs so that she was sitting just inches from her intended target.

"You're just getting straight to the point right now, aren't you?" Joe chuckled.

"You said I was in control."

"You usually are."

Joe let out a groan as Natalie slowly sank down onto him, running his hands slowly up and down her sides. He thought she was surprisingly wet for how little foreplay they'd engaged in. Natalie stayed still with him buried deep inside of her for fear of causing him harm, but was very much wanting to move on top of him. Joe reached up and ran his hands over her breasts, cupping them and admiring her body as it was positioned on top of him.

"Are you okay?" Natalie asked.

Joe exhaled slowly. "I don't think my heart is going to explode, but if I'm lucky, something else might here in a bit."

Natalie smirked. "I'll do my best."

* * *

 _Yeah, I just felt like writing a fun little hookup. Haha._


	16. Chapter 16

When she was officially forty weeks pregnant with no sign of her going into labor, Natalie had a doctor's appointment. Her doctor stripped her membranes to try to get things moving. She almost climbed off the back of the table in pain as it was being done to her.

She got excited that evening when she felt a few contractions. The couple went for a long walk around the neighborhood to try to encourage them to continue, the contractions fizzled out until they completely stopped.

Completely aggravated, Natalie had taken to Google, on a mission to figure out how to get Joe's "stubborn ass child" (as she described it) out of her body.

At forty weeks and one day pregnant, she'd found an eggplant parmesan recipe online from a restaurant in Georgia that had a website decorated with pictures of chunky, happy babies that had supposedly been born within a day or so after eating the dish. Her Italian boyfriend didn't see anything in the ingredients that was different than any other eggplant parmesan he'd ever tried, but he'd dutifully made it for her anyway. They both thought it was delicious, but all it gave Natalie was heartburn.

When she was forty weeks and two days pregnant, she went to the store and brought home two juicy pineapples. She almost cut her finger off trying to open them, and those gave her heartburn, too.

At forty weeks and three days pregnant, she brought home the spiciest Indian takeout food that she could find – it was so spicy that Joe couldn't even eat _any_ of it. Natalie eagerly chowed down on gobi manchurian and chicken vindaloo. She was sure that _had_ to work.

(But all she got was heartburn. Again.)

Then, at forty weeks and four days pregnant, she bought castor oil, then chickened out after reading about the side effects on the internet. They went for another long walk instead.

By the evening that she was forty weeks and five days pregnant, Natalie was done.

She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat anything without getting heartburn, and it hurt every time the baby tried to move inside of her because it was running out of room. Natalie stalked to their bedroom to confront Joe.

"I'd been avoiding this because I'm exhausted, huge, and really fucking unbelievably uncomfortable, but, it's the only option we have left." Natalie announced to her boyfriend, who was lying in their bed, reading.

Joe looked up from his book and over his glasses at her. "Asking the doctor about an induction like a normal person?"

Natalie shook her head. She had Googled that option, too, but had found too many horror stories about the intense, close together, and extremely painful contractions that Pitocin could cause. She was still determined to find a more natural option to go into labor.

"No." Natalie looked at him accusingly. " _You_ need to get the baby out the same way _you_ got it in."

Joe looked her over with amusement. "Well, I don't think I'll be able to take you the way I did before on your desk now with that bump…"

"Okay, smart ass. I'm pretty sure the position isn't the important part." Natalie placed her hands on her hips in annoyance. "The sperm is supposed to soften the cervix because it has prostaglandins in it, and you have to make me orgasm so I have uterine contractions. Also, you should stimulate my nipples because that releases oxytocin and helps, too."

"Well, all of that scientific jargon definitely makes this sexier."

"Let's do this."

"You're putting a whole lot of pressure on the old man here." Joe chuckled nervously and tossed his book to the nightstand. "I'm not even sure how to begin."

"I'd say like this." Natalie said. She walked to the side of the bed and reached out and cupped him through his pants.

Joe let out a small noise. "Yeah, that's a good start, but how are we going to position this? You haven't let me touch you like that in weeks and you're pretty, um, uh… Overdue now..."

"Take your clothes off now and stand at the side of the bed." Natalie commanded. "I'll lie down on the edge. That should work."

"I love it when you're bossy." Joe smirked.

"Just do it before I hit you."

"I'm into that sometimes, too."

Natalie's eyes narrowed. "This is about me, not you, remember?"

"Yes ma'am." Joe said, as he quickly and obediently pulled his shirt over his head.

* * *

"I can't believe that didn't work either." Natalie panted after, wiping the sweat from her head. "That was way too much damn effort not to work."

Joe laid beside her, still struggling to catch his breath. "You didn't think you'd go _immediately_ into labor, did you? Give it a while."

"Your child is so fucking stubborn." Natalie complained.

"Yes, I'm sure all of the stubbornness comes from _me_." Joe said, looking at her pointedly. He turned on his side and ran his hand across the overstretched bare skin of her belly. "He's just really comfortable in there. He'll come out when he's ready."

Natalie glared at him. "That's really fucking easy for _you_ to say. You're not the one carrying a baby who should be almost a week old around inside of you."

"Maybe you just need to relax." Joe said gently. "It would probably help."

"If I could relax, I would, but that is _impossible_." Natalie ran her hand up and down Joe's thigh. "Come on. Let's try again. This pregnancy is going to end _now_."

Joe shook his head. "I'm not in high school anymore, babe. I'm going to need some time here."

"Fine." Natalie grumbled, standing up from the bed. "I'm going to take a shower then."

"Sounds good." Joe yawned. "Maybe it'll help you calm down."

Natalie enjoyed long showers, and Joe had dozed off on the bed, exhausted from the effort of having sex with his heavily pregnant girlfriend, when he suddenly heard Natalie yelling for him.

"Joe?! Joe! Get in here."

"What?!" Joe woke with a start and went frantically running into the bathroom. "What's wrong?"

Natalie's head was poked out of the side of the shower curtain, her damp hair hanging around her face. The shower was still running, and her eyes were wide with shock.

"My water just broke."


	17. Chapter 17

After all of her attempts to avoid it, Natalie ended up with Pitocin anyway after her labor had failed to progress to her doctor's satisfaction. The intense, closely spaced contractions were as horrible as the internet had described. Joe sat by helplessly, having been shoved away in his attempts to hold her hand through them, wipe the sweat from her brow, or offer her ice chips.

 _Ice chips._ What a fucking joke.

She finally couldn't take it anymore, and through gritted teeth, she glared into Joe's eyes. "Find. Me. Drugs."

"Are you sure you want to get them now?"

Natalie stared at Joe incredulously. "Get the fuck out of this room, and don't come back until you have someone with you who has drugs."

* * *

If Natalie could have married the anesthesiologist in the moments after her placed the epidural line into her back, she would've. The blissful stream of drugs into her system gave her respite and the ability to relax somewhat and reduced some of the contempt she had been feeling for Joe.

When it was time for her to push, she realized that the pale blue "modesty drape" she had seen on so many TV shows was a lie. Reality had one of her legs held back by Joe, almost by her head, and the other held by a student nurse with bright lights overhead that a porn production studio would be envious of.

And certainly _no_ modesty.

" _Why_ is this taking so long?" Natalie finally screeched, two hours into pushing.

"The baby isn't turned the best way." The doctor explained.

"Like breech?" Joe asked.

"No, breech is feet first. The baby is head down but face up. Ideally the face would be pointing toward Natalie's back. It's making it harder on her to push because the baby can't tuck its chin down to get around her pelvic bone."

"Lovely." Natalie panted.

"The baby is coming down, but slowly. You just have to keep at it."

"Easy for _you_ to say."

Natalie tried to tune the rest of the world out – from the annoying ass nurse who was counting down her contractions, to the student nurse, who was starting to grow pale, and her boyfriend, who was mumbling sweet nothings she didn't want to hear while he brushed damp, stray stands of hair out of her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and put all of her focus and energy into moving her child out of her body.

Until her efforts were finally rewarded with a shrill cry.

"It's a boy!" She heard Joe manage to choke out, and she opened her eyes to her son being laid on her chest.

Everything was surreal. She stared with her mouth slightly agape at the squawking newborn, with his cone-shaped head covered in a shock of black hair. She barely noticed the nurses taking vitals on him as he laid against her. Before she realized what was happening, the doctor was having Joe cut the cord, and their baby was officially his own being, independent of her body.

Her eyes filled with tears as she placed a hand on his back to hold him more closely against her, already feeling a rush of love for and a need to protect this little person she had just met. Joe lightly ran a finger over the baby's head with a smile.

"He's beautiful." Joe said, kissing the top of her head. "And you… You were so strong and amazing."

"I didn't have much of a choice." Natalie half laughed, marveling at the baby's tiny fingers.

The nurses took him to be weighed and measured, quickly returning him to Natalie and Joe with a striped hat on his head. One of them had helped Natalie ease her gown down so that the baby could lay against her bare chest, covered with a blanket.

"I can't believe he's ours and that we are keeping him." Natalie murmured, tracing her fingers affectionately over the baby's back.

"We're a family now." Joe whispered. "How does it feel?"

"I felt a _million_ times better the moment he was out of my body."

Joe chuckled. "And emotionally?"

"I don't even know how to describe it yet. It doesn't feel like it's real."

"I love you so much."

"I love you, too."

* * *

 _I see you out there, new Joe and Natalie fans. ;) How about a little review?_


	18. Chapter 18

"Come in." Natalie sighed as someone rapped gently on her hospital room door.

Like it mattered what her answer was. Natalie had quickly learned in the day since her son's birth that the hospital staff didn't care much about her privacy, nor about her ability to rest. They bustled in at all hours to take the baby for various tests, take her blood pressure, give her handfuls of pills, and make sure the baby was nursing properly. Natalie prepared herself to be poked and prodded again.

There was the _click swish_ of someone opening the door, and she saw the huge bouquet of yellow roses before she even saw the face of the person carrying them. Immediately, she knew it was Jason.

Jason's mom, Valeria, was a florist, and he had lavished her with beautiful flowers from the time they started dating until the decline of their marriage. That was the first time he'd ever brought her yellow roses, though, and the meaning was not lost on her – friendship.

Over the years, there were hundreds, if not thousands of flowers given by Jason to Natalie. There was the single pink rose he had brought her for her first date. For their first Valentine's Day, he had sent her five dozen scarlet roses (a dozen for each month they'd been together), which Natalie would have normally called cliché and excessive, but she was so deeply in love with him that she thought it was the most beautiful gesture ever.

Their wedding almost a year and a half later had looked like a garden out of a fairy tale. Valeria had draped everything in sight with periwinkle hydrangeas, ivory roses, and star-shaped stephanotis flowers. Valeria had even carefully placed blooms into Natalie's wedding hairstyle, sharing the role of helping her get ready with Natalie's maid of honor in the absence of her mother.

When they were married and trying to have a baby, she'd sometimes wondered what kind of flowers he would bring to her in the hospital. They would surely be extravagant with no expense or detail spared. She would have never dreamed that he'd be bringing her friendship roses to visit her in the hospital with another man's baby.

Rough days at work had brought arrangements of bright daisies, sunflowers, tulips, delphinium, carnations - whatever was in season at the time. Stargazer lilies had followed each of their miscarriages, and she could no longer tolerate the heady scent of them without becoming nauseated.

The last time she remembered him giving her flowers was for the last birthday she had before the campaign, and while it was an amazing bouquet of coral peonies, they were sadly not Valeria's. Dementia had forced her to pass the shop onto one of Jason's sisters that year. It wasn't the same.

She'd asked Joe early in their relationship never to buy her flowers.

"Hey, Nati." Jason said, kissing the top of her forehead as he set the roses on the table next to her. Her arms were full of her newborn, wrapped in blue elephant blanket with a matching hat.

"They're gorgeous." Natalie said. "Of course, I wouldn't expect anything less. Thank you."

"Anything for my favorite ex-wife. Where's Joe?"

"He's out trying to find me some real food before my hangriness gets someone killed.

"Smart man." Jason leaned over her, gazing at the baby. "What's his name?"

"Ethan Ryan Caputo."

Jason smiled slightly. "He's perfect."

"Do you want to hold him?" Natalie asked.

Jason nodded and took the baby from her confidently, having had plenty of practice with his numerous nieces and nephews over the years. He and Natalie had been the only ones in his sibling group without children.

"No matter how many babies I hold, I always find it so fucking unbelievable that people start out so small." Jason remarked, holding Ethan's hand so he could examine his fingers.

"Remember the first time we held Sophia?" Natalie asked, referring to Jason's brother's daughter who had first made them an aunt and uncle. "I had literally never held a baby. Ever."

"Then they had her keep us overnight that time when she was only a few months old. I don't know what in the hell they were thinking."

"I remember she wouldn't stop crying. You were exhausted because you were studying for the bar at the time, and I exhausted because I was in grad school and working that shitty internship for that shitty marketing firm. And she was just screaming her little head off."

"Until you started singing to her." Jason finished quietly. It was the first and only time he'd ever heard Natalie sing.

"Yeah." Natalie murmured.

"She's heading to Dartmouth in the fall, so apparently, we didn't fuck her up too bad."

Natalie's jaw dropped slightly. "She's going to college? That's insane. How is that even possible?"

"I know. They grow up fast." Jason removed the hat from Ethan's head and ran his hand lightly over his downy dark head, which still had a slight cone shape.

"His poor head is all fucked up from where he got stuck, but they said it will get better." Natalie explained. "I think that's the real reason they make them wear hats. They probably don't even get that cold. It's just that no one wants to see their alien head shapes."

Jason chuckled, replacing the hat on Ethan's head. "At least he doesn't have Joe's 'hair.'"

"That's true." Natalie said, laughing softly.

Ethan began to fuss in Jason's arms. "Uh oh."

Natalie sighed tiredly. "He's probably hungry."

"Okay, I'll take off so you can feed him." Jason said, holding the baby carefully while he stood to return him to his mother.

"You don't have to leave. It's nothing you haven't seen before." Natalie rolled her eyes, shifting with a slight grimace at the pain from her stitches. "And nothing you've been interested in for a while."

"All right."

Jason politely averted his eyes to a painting of two children playing on the beach while Natalie lowered her nightgown and struggled to get the baby properly latched. When he was sure that the baby was blocking her breast, he turned his head back to continue talking to her.

That was the scene that got him. Before that, he'd been able to pretend that he was visiting an old friend and her baby in the hospital, but something about the intimacy of seeing Natalie nursing her child felt like a fist to the stomach. It reminded him that it could have been _their_ child, and that this could have been _their_ happy family scene.

He knew he was idealizing the situation. Their marriage would have still likely failed sooner or later, and then a child would have been caught in the middle of it, too, causing even more heartache.

But seeing her with the baby, he finally realized what he really wanted.

"Gavin and I have been talking about kids." Jason blurted out. "Actually, he's been talking about it more than I have, but I think we're going to go for it."

Natalie's brow lifted in surprise. "That's great, but… Who's going to grow the uterus?"

"We were thinking of adoption or maybe a surrogate with his sperm if that doesn't work out."

"I think that's great." Natalie said sincerely.

"I can't really believe that's all you have to say about this, given how you feel about Gavin."

"There's not much of a point in hating Gavin anymore, is there?" Natalie said, stroking Ethan's cheek as he suckled away at her breast. "What was supposed to happen, happened. Now we have to live our best lives."

"You look like…" Jason paused. "You look like you're really happy."

"I am." Natalie said softly. "And you?"

"Yeah… Yeah, I am."

There was a knock at the door, and Natalie again prepared herself to be stuck with something, but instead smiled when her boyfriend entered the room.

Jason wasn't sure he could even describe the joy on Joe's face when he looked at Natalie and Ethan. A kid on Christmas morning would be an understatement. Joe looked at them both with such pure adoration and love that Jason had to look back at the beach painting again because he felt like he was intruding on a private moment.

Natalie _deserved_ to have someone look at her that way.

After regaining his composure, Jason met eyes with Joe. "Congratulations, man."

"Thank you."

Jason and Joe exchanged what Natalie liked to call a "man hug," complete with excessively hard, but brief, back patting.

"Taco Bell?" Jason laughed when he realized what Joe was holding. "That was your idea of 'real food'?"

"I have no idea why, but I was dying for a Taco Supreme."

"Well, I'll leave you to your indigestion in a paper bag." Jason said. He gave Natalie a kiss on the cheek before heading toward the door. "Congratulations again."

"Thank you… And thank you again for the flowers."

With one final, wistful look at the new family, Jason slipped out of the hospital room.


	19. End

**A/N: I'm wrapping this puppy up with this little chapter. :)**

* * *

 _Are these the right swaddles you were talking about?_

The text to Natalie was accompanied by a picture. She had to smile at how hard he was trying to get everything right.

 _Yes,_ she typed back, _those are the right ones._

She laid her phone back down on the end table and leaned back on the couch, throwing her legs up into Joe's lap.

"What's he looking for now?" Joe asked.

"Swaddles. It's kind of cute that he wants my opinion so badly, but if he starts asking me about breast pumps, I'm calling the psych ward."

"It's a good thing Jason has an old pro like you to tell him what baby goods to buy." Joe chuckled, squeezing her leg.

As it turned out, Gavin was correct that a birth mother would want a wealthy, gay politician to adopt her baby; Jason and Gavin were arranging a private adoption with a pregnant teenager and were meticulously preparing for the baby's arrival in a few months – which meant Natalie's phone was constantly lighting up with questions.

Natalie laughed. "I would hardly call the past year of fumbling and mishaps we've had with parenting going pro."

"It hasn't always been easy, but you're a damn good mom."

 _Mom._ The word Natalie had always wondered if she would ever hear was now part of her daily life. Even little Ethan had started to call her "mama" just before his first birthday. It made her heart swell with a love and pride that she'd never felt before becoming a mother.

"You're not such a bad dad yourself."

They lounged on the couch in comfortable silence for several minutes, idly watching a late-night show. In order to have time alone with each other, they'd developed bad habits of staying up too late every night, but it was always worth it to have quality time as a couple.

"Yes." Natalie suddenly said.

"Yes, what?" Joe glanced over at her. "Did you read my mind about making popcorn? Do you want sea salt so we can pretend it's good for us or movie theater butter so we can enjoy it?"

Natalie shook her head. "No… I'm… I'm answering the question you asked me almost a year and a half ago."

Joe looked at her, confused for a moment, until realization hit him, and his eyes crinkled at the edges with a smile. " _Ohh,_ that. Hmm, the statute of limitations might have run out on that. I think we need a do over."

"Okay."

Natalie looked at Joe expectantly. He looked back at her, just as expectantly.

"What, me?" Natalie's eyes widened.

"You're a modern woman." Joe shrugged with a sheepish smile. "I thought you might like a turn since you brought it up."

Natalie exhaled sharply. "I'm not getting down on one knee."

"I'll have to deduct points for that, but we'll see if you can still pull it off." Joe teased.

"Okay then." Natalie cleared her throat. "Joseph Salvatore Caputo… You have the worst middle name, Jesus. You are the last person on earth that I ever expected to build a family with, which just proves that the universe or God or Zeus or Buddha or whatever has a great sense of humor. But somehow… We work. This works."

Natalie reached for one of Joe's hands and toyed with it as she continued to speak. "You've given me what I wanted most in life. A child, a cozy home to share, and your unconditional love, which I probably don't fucking deserve sometimes."

"You do." Joe murmured.

"Hush, this is my proposal." Natalie admonished. "Anyway, you've made me happier than I thought would have been possible at this stage in my life, so what I'm saying is… Joseph Salvatore Caputo… God, I can't believe I just said that again… I love you. Will you marry me?"

Joe's lips curved into a smile. "Hmm, I'll think about it.

Natalie pulled back her hand, ready to punch his arm, but Joe grabbed it and pulled him on top of her into a kiss. "Yes… Yes, I'll marry you, babe. I love you, too."

"Just to be clear, _I'm_ still the one who gets to wear the ring."

"Well, that's going to be difficult since there isn't one." Joe laughed.

"Oh, we will fix that." Natalie insisted.

"There's something I want to ask you, too."

"What's that?"

"Can we still have popcorn?"

* * *

 **Thank you for reading. :) I would love a final review before you go! Remember to check out my other stories. :)**


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